Patterns and pitfalls in storage synchronisation

Dear all,

as part of its mission statement, the TAG is expected to "anticipate growth and fundamental interoperability problems". With that in mind, looking at both the growth and fundamental usefulness of local storage as well as the need to synchronise it remotely, we expect the application development community to bump into a number of thorny issues to do with synchronisation. I was given ACTION-693 to figure out the scope of what the TAG could do in this space.

I don't believe that the TAG ought to attempt to provide a solution for synchronisation problems. It is a complex research area, and if a standardised solution were to be established (which may not be necessary, and certainly not yet) it ought to be created by a dedicated working group with the requisite expertise.

That being said, there could be room for the TAG to release a short advisory note that would document 1) the known pitfalls in dealing with data synchronisation, 2) the primary patterns and solutions, and 3) an overview of the terms of the trade. The goal of such a document would be to ensure that someone who may be an adept Web application developer but has no knowledge of this specific problem space to save precious time by being bootstrapped with the basics one needs to start working on a solution (no matter how partial).

If the TAG were to work on this, that is how I would suggest we scope the work. Whether we ought to do it at all, I leave to the group to decide (as well as to the availability of a volunteer — I certainly do not have the knowledge to address this problem).

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Friday, 8 June 2012 09:18:07 UTC