GT 3.9.5 Component Fact Sheet: Reliable File Transfer (RFT)

Brief component overview

The Reliable Transfer Service (RFT) Service implementation in 3.9.5 uses standard SOAP messages over HTTP to submit and manage a set of 3rd party GridFTP transfers and to delete files using GridFTP. The user creates a RFT resource by submitting a list of URL pairs of files that need to be transferred/deleted to RFT Factory service. The user also specifies the time to live for the resource the user is creating to a GT 3.9.5 Container in which RFT is deployed and configured. The resource is created after the user is properly authorized and authenticated. RFT service implementation exposes operations to control and manage the transfers (the resource). The operations exposed by both RFT factory and RFT service are briefly described below. The resource the user created also exposes the state of the transfer as a resource property to which the user can either subscribe for changes or poll for the changes in state periodically using standard command line clients.

Summary of features

Features new in release 3.9.5

  • Delete files : Delete a set of files/directories on a GridFTP server.
  • Exponential Backoff: Configurable exponential back off  before a failed transfer is retried
  • Transfer All or None: If this option is set and one of the transfers in the request fails RFT will stop transferring the remainder of the request and delete the files that were already transferred successfully.
  • Transfer Permissions :  File permissions are restored at the destination once the file is transffered successfully. This can be configured to throw a fatal error or a transient error.
  • Configurable number of concurrent transfers per container and per request.
  • Better Error reporting and Faults.
  • Database purge of the request and transfers after life time expiration.
  • Cumulative (aggregate ) Resource Properties on the factory provide some statistical information.
  • One status Resource Property for the entire transfer.

Other Supported Features

  • Recursive directory transfers and deletes.
  • Parallel streams
  • TCP Buffer Size
  • third-party transfers
  • Data channel authentication (DCAU)

Deprecated Features

  • None

Usability summary

Usability improvements for RFT:

  • The command-line RFT clients print out more detailed and accurate fault information for all commonly occuring errors.

Backward compatibility summary

Protocol changes since GT version 3.2

  • Added All or None option, maximum attempts, finishBy to transfer request
  • Not backwards compatible with OGSI version

API changes since GT version 3.2

  • None

Exception changes since GT version 3.2

  • None

Schema changes since GT version 3.2

  • WSDL changes to work with new Java WS Core

Technology dependencies

RFT depends on the following GT components:

  • Java WS Core
  • WS Authentication and Authorization
  • Delegation Service
  • Service Groups
  • MDS useful RP

RFT depends on the following 3rd party software:

  • PostgreSQL 7.1 version or later. Not tested with 8.0 yet.

Tested platforms

Tested platforms for RFT:

  • Linux

RFT is currently being tested on:

  • Windows
  • Mac OS X

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