Re: CT Proxies and Forward Caches

Hi Umesh,

I'm not sure I completely follow your point here, feel free to correct me.

The Presentation-URI header you mention to identify alternative 
representations being served looks like the "Link" element we're 
currently discussing in another thread, see:
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-bpwg-ct/2008May/0021.html 
and replies.

In the case of the Link element, we're currently trying to see when it 
makes sense to use it, and how it could be used in practice. This would 
indeed avoid the extra round trip in the sense that the CT-proxy would 
be able to do the redirection for the user and so the "redirect" would 
not reach the high-latency network the end-user is connected to.

Now, obviously, the problem with the "Link" element is that it is at the 
markup level, and not at the HTTP level. It would be cool to have a 
"Link" HTTP header, typically for images and more generally for all 
non-HTML content. We're not the only ones who want the "Link" header 
back to life ("back" since it previously existed but disappeared for 
lack of use, how ironic ;-)), and there are many on-going discussions 
within W3C and IETF about that. If it ever becomes a reality, it would 
indeed be useful to serve multiple representations of a resource.

Note that it's not directly related to content transformation in itself. 
The presence of a content transformation proxy merely adds to the case.

Did I get you right?

Francois.


Umesh Sirsiwal wrote:
> Jo, Francois, Bryan,
> Thanks for the responses. IMO absence of standardization in this space
> will cause caches built in CT or otherwise to implement heuristics based
> solutions to deduce intent of CP or CT. That is less then desirable. 
> 
> To avoid the extra round trip Francois pointed out, the CP can possible
> serve an HTTP header (let us call it Presentation-URI) identifying
> alternative representation served. The CT proxy or other caches will
> need to pay attention to this new header. But, as long as Via header is
> always included, they will be able to correctly cache and serve the
> content. 
> 
> The Presentation-URI does not have to be limited to the three groups. In
> some cases the Presentation-URI can be very specific and say something
> like www.example.com/Device_a. Won't that work?
> 
> -Umesh
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jo Rabin [mailto:jrabin@mtld.mobi]
>> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 6:16 AM
>> To: Francois Daoust
>> Cc: Umesh Sirsiwal; Sullivan, Bryan; public-bpwg-ct@w3.org
>> Subject: Re: CT Proxies and Forward Caches
>>
>> Aside from the redirect cost that Francois mentions, I am not sure
> that
>> having separate URIs to allow caching of the "high" "medium" and "low"
>> cases is the whole answer, since the response may still vary within
>> those groups depending on work-arounds to the quirks of any particular
>> device within the grouping.
>>
>> As Francois points out, this relates to the "long-running" ISSUE-222,
>> and it's down to me to try to make sure that it doesn't run much
> longer
>> :-(
>>
>> Jo
>>
>> On 21/05/2008 09:34, Francois Daoust wrote:
>>> Indeed, the use of a "Vary: User-Agent" header generates much more
>>> entries than a more typical use of Vary such as "Vary: Accept-
>> Language",
>>> and is thus not a really cache-friendly directive.
>>>
>>> The solution Bryan suggested to create representation-specific URIs
>> for
>>> each UA group, coupled with a redirect response from a canonical
>>> representation is much better from a cache perspective but it has a
>>> cost: that of a round-trip between the server and the client to
> serve
>>> the redirect response to the representation-specific URI. This
>> solution
>>> is recommended by the W3C Technical Architecture Group in a finding
>> "On
>>> Linking Alternative Representations To Enable Discovery And
>> Publishing"
>>> [1].
>>>
>>> We only mention the use of the "Vary" header in current version of
>> the
>>> Content Transformation Guidelines document, but we have a long-
>> running
>>> discussion (internally named ISSUE-222) on the above mentioned TAG
>>> finding. We may include that possibility in the document as well.
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/alternatives-
>> discovery.html#id2261672
>>>
>>> Sullivan, Bryan wrote:
>>>> Hi Umesh,
>>>> As you mention, meta-group assignment (e.g. good/better/best) is a
>>>> deployment-specific function, i.e. one Content Provider (CP) may
>>>> choose a different set of groups and UA assignment as compared to
>>>> another. Without the direct involvement of the CT proxy in group
>>>> selection, the only way I see to reduce the cached representations
>> is
>>>> for the CP to provide a distinct URI to UA's in a group (e.g. a URI
>>>> parameter or unique path), so the various UA's naturally get served
>>>> one of a fewer variations of the page from the cache.
>>>>
>>>> "direct involvement of the CT proxy in group selection" implies
> some
>>>> kind of metadata exchange between CP and CT proxy, through which
>>>> group-related pages can be indicated, and maybe a tighter
>> integration
>>>> of the CT proxy and cache. Both appear (to me) to be less desirable
>> to
>>>> standardize, and at least more complex to consider.
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Bryan Sullivan | AT&T
>>>>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----
>>>> *From:* public-bpwg-ct-request@w3.org
>>>> [mailto:public-bpwg-ct-request@w3.org] *On Behalf Of *Umesh
> Sirsiwal
>>>> *Sent:* Monday, May 19, 2008 8:12 AM
>>>> *To:* public-bpwg-ct@w3.org
>>>> *Subject:* CT Proxies and Forward Caches
>>>>
>>>> Several content transformation proxies and the Internet in general
>>>> includes forward caches. Current definition of HTTP includes
>>>> indication of transformation using Vary header. In most cases the
>>>> Content Transformation proxies and servers vary their responses
>> based
>>>> on User-Agent header. The number of User-Agent string in is very
>> high
>>>> and caches cannot possibly store these mean copies of the response.
>>>> Most servers are likely to classify the devices in certain meta-
>> groups
>>>> for the purpose of content transformation. However, this meta-group
>> is
>>>> expected to be server specific. In absence of formal method, the
>>>> caches will be left to guess the meta-group. What will be the
> method
>>>> to solve this?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>

Received on Monday, 26 May 2008 15:32:12 UTC