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A New Architecture for Web Services at CERN. Alberto Di Meglio, Francois Fluckiger, Monica Marinucci, Per Hagen, Alberto Pace. http://cern.ch/web. Part 1 of 2. The new Web Namespace Review of new Services. Today’s namespace. http://www.cern.ch/… http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/…
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A New Architecture for Web Services at CERN Alberto Di Meglio, Francois Fluckiger, Monica Marinucci, Per Hagen, Alberto Pace http://cern.ch/web
Part 1 of 2 • The new Web Namespace • Review of new Services
Today’s namespace • http://www.cern.ch/… • http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/… • http://network.cern.ch/… • http://home.cern.ch/… • http://nicewww.cern.ch/… • http://wwwas.cern.ch/… • …
From the MAIL architecture Translation Service Generic address Physical address First.last@cern.ch user@host.cern.ch Global namespace domain Mailbox name Physical Mail Server name
The same for the WEB Translation / Redirection Service Generic address Physical address http://cern.ch/SiteName http://host.cern.ch/path domain Global namespace Physical Web Server name Site Name
Complete Duality Mail - Web Mail address and mailing lists Web address Organisational Units it-div@cern.ch http://cern.ch/it-div aleph-exp@cern.ch http://cern.ch/aleph-exp Individuals addresses and personal files alberto.pace@cern.ch http://cern.ch/alberto.pace
… more duality … • Mail • “Mail Composing” tools are unable to find the physical server name from the generic address first.last@cern.ch • given a user’s mailbox “xxxx”, the host “xxxx.mailbox.cern.ch” represents the server hosting the xxxx mailbox • Web • “Web Authoring” tools are unable to find the physical server name from the generic address http://cern.ch/xxxx • given a sitename “xxxx”, the host “xxxx.web.cern.ch” represents the server hosting the xxxx site xxxx@xxxx.mailbox.cern.ch http://xxxx.web.cern.ch/xxxx
Not limited to Central Servers • MAIL: “Generic E-mail Addresses” (xxxx@cern.ch) can point to locally managed mail servers or even to servers outside CERN • WEB: “Generic URL Addresses” (http://cern.ch/xxx) can point to locally managed web servers or even to servers outside CERN
What about www.cern.ch ? • http://www.cern.ch and http://cern.ch are equivalent • Users preferring the www.cern.ch syntax can use it, the leading www. being optional.
Will we still have broken links ? • The new web redirector supports site aliasing • Multiple / different names can be mapped to the same physical site • We can have: • Old names pointing to new names http://cern.ch/cn-div -> http://cern.ch/it-div • Descriptive names pointing to real names http://cern.ch/it.division -> http://cern.ch/it-div http://cern.ch/Alberto.Pace -> http://cern.ch/pace • Site nicknames, easier to type http://cern.ch/it -> http://cern.ch/it-div • Existing hosts can be ‘taken over’ by the central redirector • http://mysite.cern.ch/ -> http://cern.ch/mysite
100 % compatible with the existing infrastructure • Existing servers integrates smoothly in the namespace • No broken links / No HTML to modify • The Web namespace becomes independent from the physical server layout and it allows the evolution of the existing infrastructure
DEMO • You can access the CERN Scuba club site using any of the following URLs: • http://cern.ch/subaqua • http://www.cern.ch/subaqua • http://web.cern.ch/subaqua • http://subaqua.cern.ch • http://subaqua.web.cern.ch • http://subaqua.web.cern.ch/subaqua • As in the browser, the prefix http://and the domain name cern.ch can be omitted, a CERN user can simply type “subaqua” to access the site
Part 2 of 2 • The new Web Namespace • Review of new Services
With the new web namespace … • We are no longer bound to the “all in one server” architecture. • We can differentiate Server OS, Web Server software, File Storage and support multiple solutions if necessary. • We can go beyond simple static HTML authoring and open a wide set of new services … • (as described in the next slides)
Site Hosting • Site hosting means offering disk space to store web files and then make them available via http • Based on a pool of (cheap) servers to host web sites of customer who do not want to maintain their own server • Load balanced using the web.cern.ch subdomain • Every web site has one (and only one) owner responsible for the site content who can manage or delegate the site security
Site Hosting • Sites can be physically stored on • Central Web servers • AFS • NICE • (locally managed servers) • Flat Namespace (part of the CERN web namespace) • http://(www.)cern.ch/sitename • Subsites are possible but managed by owners of upper sites • http://cern.ch/mainsite/subsite1subsite1 is managed by the owner of mainsite
Authoring interfaces • Authoring interfaces (sites on the Central Web Servers) • HTTP (PUT method) http://sitename.web.cern.ch/sitename • FTP ftp://sitename.web.cern.ch/sitename ftp://user@sitename.web.cern.ch/sitename • OSE = Microsoft Office Server Extensions See http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork • DAV = Distributed Authoring and Versioning (Foreseen) See http://www.w3c.org
Site Registration Services • Automated Site Registration and Creation Service • Users can create/delete web sites or registrations themselves • A moderator authority supervises all actions • Users are authenticated on AFS or NICE and site ownership is always checked
Support for Authoring Tools • Site management & page editing tools • Microsoft FrontPage • Macromedia Dreamweaver • Page editing tools • Netscape Composer • Other Microsoft Office Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, …)
More Services • Forms • All sites in the central web servers are form-ready • Users can create electronic forms themselves • Databases • All central web pages can be connected to databases • Databases can be local “Access” files or remote Oracle • Read and Write access • Search services • Both client-side (infoseek) and server-side indexing • Complementary services
More services (2) • Access Control • ACL, IP address restrictions, external authentication, password protected documents, … • Secure connections (HTTPS, SSL) • Available on all central sites by default • Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS) and Themes • We have now the necessary tools to make available Corporate / Divisional look and feel policies • Document Source Control • For sites authored by multiple persons
CGI-Interface and Scripting • Every site on the central servers has a cgi-bin directory • Standard CGI-Interface fully supported • Scripting • Supported interpreters: *.PL (Perl) and *.ASP (Active Server Pages). • Supported languages for ASP: Vbscript, Jscript and PerlScript.
Conclusion • The new namespace gives us independence from the physical infrastructure and allows us to move forward • An important set of pending requirements for the web services will be addressed with the new architecture • For more information …