Re: Review of draft-ietf-webdav-quota-02.txt

Re quotas, as an implementor (reliant on what server vendors make 
available) I'm not sure I understand the discussion very well so let 
me make a few general comments from my perspective and hope that you 
can see whether and how they fit.

The current bias of WebDAV implementation favors the single web site 
that has multiple authors.  In this context, a single, overriding 
quota makes sense.  Of course, this site could be one of many Virtual 
Hosts running on the same machine, served by the same webserver, etc. 
I have no quarrel with that scenario at all.

My problem is with the exclusion of another, very important class of 
website, the individual web site and this is not favored by the 
WebDAV bias.  While this class of web site may include personal web 
sites that may be considered frivolous, it also includes  many 
serious, professional web sites that need WebDAV even more that 
large, corporate/institutional web sites do.

For example, we currently host a Faculty Web Server where every 
faculty person is allocated 250 Mb of space with which to share 
information relevant to their teaching, service and research.  If 
they try to FTP upload beyond that limit, they are programmatically 
refused.  There is also a "soft" limit where they get a warning and 
we have a CGI that gives them a graphical and numeric representation 
of their allocation and how much of it has been used.

We would really like to replace FTP with WebDAV but to do so will 
require being able to set and enforce hard/soft limits and provide 
feedback such that account holders can regulate their own behavior.

At this point in history, WebDAV is like the Wild West.  The first 
person to grab disk space gets to keep it and the others have to make 
do with less.  We actually have one faculty person who managed to lay 
claim to more than a Gig of space before we implemented the limits.

Even more daunting is the prospect of a Student Web Server with 
5,000+ accounts that we are currently in the planning stages for. 
Students will be required to develop portfolios that will be used to 
evaluate their work prior to graduation and provide prospective 
employers with data to support employment decisions after graduation. 
Not frivolous at all.
-- 
=====================================================================
Dr. Frank Lowney  frank.lowney@gcsu.edu
     Director, Electronic Instructional Services, a unit of the
     Office of Information and Instructional Technology,
     Professional Pages: http://www.gcsu.edu/oiit/eis/
     Personal Pages: http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~flowney
Voice: (478) 445-5260
=====================================================================
We don't make instruction effective, we make effective instruction 
more accessible.

Please note that my new e-mail address is: frank.lowney@gcsu.edu

Received on Saturday, 8 November 2003 08:03:49 UTC