Infrastructure

obsoleted data should not clutter search results, but the current MN.update() method specification only mentions setting the appropriate obsoletes / obsoletedBy fields.

MN.update should also ensure that the obsoleted objects are also archived.

documentation and implementations need to reflect these changes, as well as existing content in production. No change to the indexer seems to be needed.

the IRC discussion:

[12:09pm] rob: Chris, did you want me to create a ticket for MN's archiving obsoleted objects during MN.update?
[12:12pm] chris: sure - just a ticket for dave to update the docs to say that update() 'SHOULD' call archive()
[12:12pm] chris: thx
[12:12pm] rob: sure.
[12:13pm] rob: do we want to also have the CN's set the archived flag for all the obsoleted data in production now?
[12:14pm] rob: or have member nodes do the work themselves?
[12:14pm] chris: hmm. good question.
[12:14pm] chris: one sec
[12:14pm] rob: (good test of the MN.systemMeatadataChanged() method)
[12:16pm] rob: we'll also have to notify Tier1 (and 2) Nodes that they may need to change their implementation of update, too. I'll need to write an integration for this ...
[12:17pm] chris: interesting - i'm looking at Metacat's update(), and am not seeing a call to archive()
[12:18pm] chris: so, I think this needs to be done on the MN side
[12:19pm] chris: we'd fix update(), then on the 2.0.7 release of Metacat, each site would go through an upgrade process to find obsoleted pids that are yet to be archived, then archive them
[12:19pm] chris: then the CN would pick up on all that
[12:20pm] chris: so, would you make it a story, and assign a subtask to Ben or me to update Metacat? And perhaps Roger for GMN if it doesn't archive()?
[12:20pm] rob: aye-aye cap'n
[12:20pm] skye: if we really want obsolete to be kept out of the index via update/archive, shouldn't the CN be enforcing the archive flag is set. otherwise its a MN policy decision?
[12:21pm] chris: hmm. good point. seems like we need both
[12:22pm] robert: another point in the conversation about control of sysMeta
[12:22pm] skye: true
[12:23pm] chris: this could be handled in d1_sync or in Metacat, and it could throw InvalidSystemMetadata if obsoletedBy is present but archived is not
[12:23pm] chris: are we sure there are no edge cases on this though?
[12:25pm] robert: why we'd want obsoletedBy set but not archived?
[12:25pm] chris: i can't think of any scenario
[12:27pm] rob: me neither.
[12:28pm] chris: robert - in sync, when you are updating an object, do you call create()?
[12:28pm] chris: CN.create() that is
[12:29pm] chris: i ask, because i see this in CNodeService.create():
[12:29pm] chris: sysmeta.setArchived(false); // this is a create op, not update
[12:43pm]

and earlier...

[11:53am] skye: yeah…so anyways doesn't sound like any change to indexing to me
[11:55am] rob: cool, then you don't know of any use case for keeping these-things-that-will-now-get-archived-automatically in the search index, do you?
[11:56am] rob: (aka: things-that-were-once-only-obsoleted)
[11:57am] skye: well I think you mentioned the motivation to have the obsolete in the search - it makes finding the package information for an obsoleted document hard
[11:57am] skye: if they are not in the index
[11:58am] skye: but if they can trace the obsolete chain to the current version of the doc/pid, then they can discover the package info of the current version of the objects
[11:58am] rob: yes, exactly - that's an important use case.
[11:59am] rob: and they would then have to travel back in time along the package obsoletes chain to get the relationships for obsoleted items.
[11:59am] rob: not impossible, but not fun either
[12:00pm] skye: right
[12:00pm] rob: I think it's a clearer implementation, though
[12:01pm] rob: people doing search don't have to be so "in-the-know"
[12:01pm] skye: yeah after thinking about it, having just one attribute control index/search visibility is good
[12:01pm] skye: well they do
[12:01pm] skye: still
[12:02pm] skye: know they have to know that obsolete documents are not in the index - not sure that will be obvious to all people
[12:02pm] skye: now
[12:03pm] skye: i can imagine support questions - i can find my object using /resolve and /object but not with search
[12:03pm] rob: yes - a good question for ask.dataone.org

[12:05pm] skye: this change would require our production MN to archive all their current obsolete docs?
[12:06pm] skye: or something to be pushed out from the CN to the MN?
[12:07pm] rob: good question