CUPID

Consortium for University Printing
and Information Distribution

Protocols and Services (Version 1):

An Architectural Overview

CUPID Services

To initiate CUPID activity, the Publisher's Client creates a CUPID Printjob and places it on a CUPID Origination Server. Each Printjob specifies a series of activities, or Tasks, to be performed at one or more CUPID Printshops, and also includes the contents of any documents referenced by those Tasks. After placing the Printjob on the Origination Server, the Publisher's Client will, in general, disconnect from the Server.

For each CUPID Printshop referenced by the Printjob, the Origination Server informs the Printshop's CUPID Notification Server that a Printjob is ready. The Printshop receives this notification either immediately (if its Client happens to be online to the Notification Server at the time) or when it next connects. In either case, the Printshop then uses its Client(s) to interact with the CUPID Servers to execute the Tasks. The Printshop's Client retrieves the specified document(s) from the Origination Server and directs the document(s) to the appropriate printer server. The CUPID Architecture neither requires nor prohibits the caching of text, images, or other information at locations other than the Origination Server. This is an implementation consideration. The Architecture does require, however, that any such caching must be invisible to all Clients and must not violate any of CUPID's security provisions.

Some Tasks are directly performed by the Printshop, some by an Agent, and others performed by the Printshop and certified by an Agent. As each Task is performed and/or certified, the Printshop or Agent uses its Client to notify the Origination Server what has occurred. The Origination Server maintains a Message Queue for the Printjob, and these Messages are available to the Publisher's Client when it next connects to CUPID (or, if it remains constantly connected, in real time).

To carry out the process summarized above, CUPID Servers provide the following services (among others):

• Workflow Management Services. These services begin with interactions between the Publisher's Client and the CUPID Origination Server (resulting in the creation of a CUPID Printjob on that Server); continue by informing the Notification Server(s) that a Printjob is available; and conclude with the removal of the Printjob and all associated control information from the Origination Server at some defined interval of time following completion of all Printjob Tasks.

  CUPID controls the flow of the Printjob in at least the following ways: The Origination Server maintains the status of the Printjob, including indications of which Tasks have been completed. This status can be queried by the Publisher, Printshop, and appropriate Agents, and forms the basis for CUPID to present a list of "next possible tasks" to Printshops and Agents. CUPID also ensures that no Task may be marked as complete until any prerequisite Tasks have been so marked.

  Part of CUPID's Workflow Management Services is a facility by which any of the Parties to a Printjob may send a free-text message to any other Party to that Printjob. An option on each such message is the requirement that all CUPID processing on the Printjob be suspended (at the next reasonable breakpoint) until an answer is received and the Printjob is "released" by the sender of the original message. Such messages may also be used by a Publisher to cancel a Printjob, although it should be noted that CUPID cannot guarantee the response time to such cancellation requests.

  Yet another feature of CUPID's Workflow Management Services is maintaining (on the Origination Server) a log of all activity related to the Printjob, complete with timestamps. This log may be examined by the Publisher (and, to a limited extent, by other Parties) during the progress of the Printjob and may be archived by the Publisher as a permanent audit trail. The log may also be used for system recovery purposes (see System Services below).

• Authentication and Access Control Services. CUPID Servers will have the ability to authenticate the identity of Publishers, Printshops, and Agents. CUPID Servers will also authenticate each other. CUPID limits all Parties and Servers to only those activities each is permitted to carry out.

• Encryption Services. Within CUPID, all Client-Server and Server-Server communications will be end-to-end encrypted, using a suitable public- or private-key system. One particular encryption system will be selected and described in the CUPID detailed-design document. CUPID Origination and Notification Servers will offer the option of storing local information in encrypted form as well. The need for local encryption will depend on whether a particular CUPID Server is under the complete administrative control of the relevant Party or is, instead, a shared system. As a general design goal, CUPID provides the ability to ensure that all information related to the CUPID System--including the contents of all documents--is secure while under CUPID control.

• Validation Services. CUPID ensures that all Server-Server and Client-Server communications conform to CUPID requirements. CUPID also ensures that Printjobs do not request services from Printshops which those Printshops cannot perform (based on the Printshop Specification Records stored on CUPID Notification Servers).

• Document Assembly Services. Publishers are provided the ability to submit documents in parts (called Subdocuments) for assembly into one or more finished products. This facilitates, for example, the submission of a single Printjob to produce a variety of documents which differ among themselves only in their cover text, or the production of "personalized journals" based on customers' registered areas of interest.

• Image Conversion Services. CUPID provides for the conversion of various document image file formats and compression algorithms to standard CUPID file formats and compression algorithms (see Section 5). This conversion is performed by the Origination Server at the time of Printjob submission. No further conversion or re-conversion services are provided by CUPID. This implies that applications that make use of CUPID, or Printshops themselves, are responsible for any further conversion required to print CUPID Documents on a given printer.

• System Services. CUPID provides for server backup and recovery; audit trails; capacity (local site limits pertaining to a particular Server) control, including local duration and size storage limits placed on the temporary storage of documents and other CUPID files; version control of the CUPID software itself; standards control; and other system administration functions.

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