0.6 Release Notes

gCore 0.6 introduces the following changes:

Changes Related to the gHN

• new versions of Local Services and Libraries. Most noticeably:

• the ResultSet service, with optional [SSL support http://add.link].
• the Deployer service, with support for plugin deployment and activation. In the version of the service included in this distribution, the deployment of pluggable services implies the deployment of all their plugins from the SoftwareRepository service.
• the Delegation service, with support for periodic delegation of service credentials. In the version of the service included in this distribution the credentials of the local gHN are used in place of service credentials to identify services as operating from trusted gHNs.
• the ISPublisher and Collector-stubs libraries, with support for synchronous publication.
• the SoftwareRepository-stubs library, with support for plugin download.
• the Resources library, with support for plugin profiles. Associated changes can be found in service.xsd and runninginstance.xsd under $GLOBUS_LOCATION/share/schema/gcube/common/core/profiles.
• the GCubeProvider library, with support for WS-Notification interfaces.
• the new Security library, with support for authentication and authorisation of gCube calls.

• two new scripts in $GLOBUS_LOCATION/bin, gcore-start-container-debug and gcore-start-container-profile, to start the gHN in debug and profiling mode, respectively. See also the Primer for detailed usage instructions.

Changes Related to Services

• support for service plugins.

gCF now adds programming abstractions for the design of pluggable services, i.e. service that can be dynamically extended with code that is packaged and deployed as the payload of service plugins. The abstractions offer transparencies for the management, description, and configuration of service plugins and are interfaced by the Deployer service for their deployment.

• support for synchronous resource publication.

Resource publication can now occur in synchronous fashion, depending on the choice of interfaces used for publication. Publications performed by gCF on behalf of service developers (e.g. for WS-Resources) can be configured to occur either synchronously or asynchronously.

• support for authorisation of gCube calls.

All security managers in gCF now intercept incoming gCube calls and forward them to a configurable local authorisation engine for the enforcement of service policies in a secure infrastructure. The policies are remotely defined but locally cached, first at service startup (as a pre-condition to the usability of the service) and then whenever they change.