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• YADE should support file transfer operations with Azure Blob Storage.
• Technically speaking Azure file transfer operations make use of the HTTPS protocol and a number of query parameters and headers. The implementation therefore is fairly straightforward.
• The sticking point is about what authentication methods should be supported and how they would be operated:
  • If blob containers are made publicly available and require no authentication then the YADE supports this out-of-the-box.
  • If Azure authentication methods are applied then different implementation strategies are to be considered. Azure supports a range of authentication methods - we picked two of them for this proposal:
    • Use of Shared Key authentication, see Authorize with Shared Key
    • Use of Shared Access Signature authentication (SAS), see Create an Account SAS
• There are impacts on job operation depending on the authentication method that is preferred by an organization.

Authentication Methods

Find a preliminary comparison of authentication methods:

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• Find samples for use of authentication methods and respective file transfer operations from the following articles:
  • Feature Proposal - Azure Blob Storage - Shared Key Authentication
  • Feature Proposal - Azure Blob Storage - Shared Access Signatures
• When using a single Shared Key or Shared Access Signature for all YADE file transfer jobs then
  • this could be added as a constant value to the JobScheduler configuration, e.g. with a parameter to the ./config/scheduler.xml file.
  • this could be added to a Credential Store that would be accessed by any YADE file transfer jobs.
• When using individual Shared Keys or Shared Access Signatures per YADE file transfer job then a Monitor should be implemented that is assigned on a per job basis and that can be parameterized to use the key or signature specified by a job parameter or order parameter.
• Should Shared Keys or Shared Access Signatures have to be renewed on a regular basis then this can be executed by a job, e.g. running daily, that is implemented by a user of JobScheduler.

References

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