[CONNECTORS-233] ManifoldCF would benefit from a generic push agent

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: ManifoldCF next
• Fix Version/s: ManifoldCF next
• Component/s: Framework agents process
• Assignee: Karl Wright
• Reporter: Karl Wright
• Created: 02/Aug/11 09:43
• Updated: 15/May/14 11:43

Description

ManifoldCF has a pull agent which crawls to get what it needs. There is, however, no "push" agents available. Developing a JSON-based push agent would demonstrate how to write one of these entities, and if done properly would also be useful in many off-the-shelf situations where notification is used.

The most common model would involve an API to which change notifications could be reliably posted. A database table would maintain a list of the documents that needed processing, like the jobqueue. Fetching of documents would then need to be performed through a pluggable interface similar in some respects to IRepositoryConnector, but which would differ because version strings are unneeded. Indexing, of course, would proceed through the agents framework.

I would anticipate that such an exercise would lead to some changes in the way the agents framework is structured. It is also possible to imagine that instead of a push agent, a notification service could be added to the pull-agent which would effectively do the same thing. Choosing the right approach would be part of this ticket.