centralized DS - contributions?

[Vladimir Mencl]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for this info.

I think there is still a need for a CDS - something federations would 
provide as the backup solutions for SPs that would not be deploying the EDS.

While the total number of CDS deployments would likely stay pretty low 
(one per federation...), I think the importance of having this option is 
still high.

Comparing to the SWITCH WAYF, the CDS supports multiple federations - 
and that was a key feature for us at the time we were launching.  (With 
a number of SPs and IdPs in our audience registered into multiple 
federations).

And while we do not need this feature at the moment (situating has 
changed and we have our bases covered), the need for multiple 
federations on a single DS may easily come back.

But thanks for sharing the plans on the CDS - that's very useful to know.

I'll look at porting the development that happened in the CDS into our 
fork and I'll "watch this space".

Cheers,
Vlad


>> Now that I finally got to it - would you be interested in merging any of
>> these features into the CDS core version?
>
> Well, the situation with the CDS is that unless it's rewritten on
> top  of the new code base, it has to be mothballed. We are not going to add
> features to the existing code base, so adding new features is contingent
> on it being redone and on how much time we want to spend on that code
> afterward.
>
> Our strategy has been to deprecate the CDS in favor of the EDS for
> most deployments, including anybody operating a centralized service
> (which itself doesn't really make a lot of sense in an interfederated
> world).
>
> Originally I proposed that we would do a rewrite this Spring, but
> when
> we investigated, we determined that relatively people were running this
> code anymore (there are better options like SWITCH's WAYF) and it seemed
> like a bad use of Rod's time to work on this. When I mentioned we were
> thinking of killing it on the users list, one or two federations said
> something about it.
>
> We don't have to make a final decision until the end of the year or
> so, but we have to figure out some way of determining the demand. Of all
> the code we're maintaining, the CDS is used by the fewest people, and
> our maintenance debt is becoming untenable right now.
>
> -- Scott

-- 
Vladimir Mencl, Ph.D.
E-Research Services and Systems Consultant
BlueFern Computing Services
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch 8140
New Zealand

http://www.bluefern.canterbury.ac.nz
mailto:vladimir.mencl at canterbury.ac.nz
Phone: +64 3 364 3012
Mobile: +64 21 997 352
Fax: +64 3 364 3002