/*
 * Copyrights     : CNRS
 * Author         : Oleg Lodygensky
 * Acknowledgment : XtremWeb-HEP is based on XtremWeb 1.8.0 by inria : http://www.xtremweb.net/
 * Web            : http://www.xtremweb-hep.org
 * 
 *      This file is part of XtremWeb-HEP.
 *
 *    XtremWeb-HEP is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 *    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 *    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 *    (at your option) any later version.
 *
 *    XtremWeb-HEP is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 *    GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 *    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 *    along with XtremWeb-HEP.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 *
 */


********************************************
*                XWHEP-8.X                 *
*------------------------------------------*
* Release date :                           *
* Author : Oleg Lodygensky                 *
*          lodygens@lal.in2p3.fr           *
* Trac   : https://trac.lal.in2p3.fr/DGHEP *
********************************************


Developments are tracked on our trac server referred above.


* <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
*
*         Major points in this version
*        <---------------------------->
*
*  - Correction  : inter node communication 
*                  Thanks to Jason Maassen
*                  from  Netherlands eScience Center in Amsterdam
*  - Correction  : REST interface
*  - New feature : the server embeds Web service available through HTTPS
* <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

* >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
*
*         Already under development for the next version
*        <---------------------------------------------->
*
* - The scratch disk in the Virtual Machines should be formatted in FAT32
*   to ease results retrieval
*
* >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>




-A- Corrections

-A.1- on server side, the scheduling improved : hosts.incomingconnection is 
      now taken into account to ensure a server like job is not sent to 
      a volunteer resource where incoming connections are not allowed 
-A.2- on server side, the scheduling improved : restoring a feature
      from XtremWeb 1.8.0 by INRIA : "expected host" so that the end user can 
      specify at submission time the expected volunteer resource to run the job. 
      Note, that if the expected host does not request a job or does not match
      the requirements (OS, CPU...), the job is never computed.
-A.3- the DG to SG bridge is now compatible with shared applications so that 
      we can use VirtualBox on EGI resources
-A.4- some bugs corrected on client side regarding application registration and task management
-A.5- a bug corrected on temporary file usage: they are now cleaned at software exit
-A.6- the REST interface has been completely rewritten
       The <xwhep></xwhep> root element MUST be used
       Ex:
       - to send a new application
          https://server/sendapp/?XWPARAM=<xwhep version="8.0.2-flyinggrid"><app name="pouet" /></xwhep>
       - to retrieved registered applications
          https://server/getapps
-A.7- a bug corrected in HTTP data download
-A.8- SmartSocket usage corrected; inter node communications fully functional now

-B- New features

-B.1- the creation of new Live CD can be customized
      * this is done by providing several optional files:
        -> a text file 'user.packages' may be provided to install custom packages
           this file must contain a space separated packages list
        -> a text file 'user.hostname' may be provided to customize the LiveCD hostname
           this file must contain the host name only
        -> any package files are installed on the fly (*.rpm or *.deb, depending on the LiveCD OS)
-B.2- the client can now be used to create SmartSockets end point, independently of any task
	  * this may be useful to create SmartSockets tunnel from a running VM to the client PC
	    -> e.g. mount the client FS inside the running VM
-B.3- a new Mac OS X package "xwhep.vworker" to deploy the middleware inside a VM
-B.4- the server contains an embedded Web service interface available through HTTPS


-C- Known Bugs

-C.1- xtremweb.gmond.pl does not scale
-C.2- the scheduler is not fair
-C.3- there may be some concurrent access problems leading to some errors
      There may be two concurrent accesses problems
        - on server side, DB access may lead to inconsistency between works and tasks tables
	  This could certainly be solved using SQL transactions
	  But we would then need MySQL >=5
	  There are sime issues withe transactions with hsqldb
	- on worker side, file access if a worker is configured to run jobs in parallel (default one thread per CPU core)

	We have observed that these concurrent access problems may lead to up to 6% erroneous jobs.
	Until further notification, we consider this rate acceptable.



- Versionning -

Versionning is as follow
	- X is a major part of the version
	- Y is a minor part of the version
	- Z is the micro part of the version

(*) X reports a very important change : for example the communication protocol changes or a major new feature is modified/introduced/removed
When X changes, backward compatibility is not ensured

(*) Y reports a important but not critical change : backward compatibility is ensured

(*) Z reports a minor change : bug correction, documentation changes etc.