create web services for querying GMOC data

[Kevin Bohan]

We need a set of web services that allow clients to query for GMOC-held data. We could follow something like this:

Mechanism Since almost all of our data is encapsulated in the HTTP payload, we *could* do real REST and support GET, PUT, and DELETE. Or, we could keep it simple and do fake REST (do everything through a POST).

Naming Getters have a "get_" prefix. Setters have a "set_" prefix.

Returns Return values are to use JSON as a data exchange format by default but can support others by way of the client's requested MIME type (such as 'application/xml'). All returns will be UTF-8 encoded.

AuthN/AuthZ Maybe use GENI credentials?

[Kevin Bohan]

Also, we need to make sure we do proper error handling. Return a 200 if an operation succeeds and something in the 400 range if it doesn't, with informative error messages returned to the client *and* put in the server logs. Return a 500-something if the wheels fall off.

[Kevin Bohan]

Also consider the idea of using MIME multipart data to do submissions. That'd let us submit relational data and measurement data at the same time (even if measurement data is a binary file.

[chaos@bbn.com]

This has been done; it is the backend behind gmoc.py relational download.