View source for Documentation/Labs/Modernizing-Slicer-Extensions-DataStore-TestingData-Packages-Server



Slicer Extension Manager, Slicer Data Store, Slicer's testing data server, and http://download.slicer.org are all dependent on https://slicer.kitware.com

As of March 2017, the platform powering https://slicer.kitware.com is based on Midas, this document describes the current services, their limitations and plan to improve them.

== Terminology ==

* Slicer Extension server: Store and organize the extension packages and provide the interface allowing to find and install extension from within Slicer. Its front-end is available on http://slicer.kitware.com/midas3/slicerappstore and also through the [[Documentation/Nightly/SlicerApplication/ExtensionsManager|ExtensionsManager]]. See also [[Documentation/Nightly/Extensions/Catalog|ExtensionsCatalog]], [[Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Extensions/Server|ExtensionsServer]]

* Slicer Data Store server: Store and organize datasets shared by other Slicer users. Its front-end is available on http://slicer.kitware.com/midas3/slicerdatastore and also through the [[Documentation/Nightly/Modules/DataStore|DataStore]] module. 

* Slicer's testing data server: Store testing data downloaded when running Slicer tests. See [[Documentation/Nightly/Developers/Tutorials/UploadTestData|UploadTestData]] documentation.

* Slicer application package server: Store Slicer release packages and the backend for http://download.slicer.org


All these servers are one instance and currently hosted on https://slicer.kitware.com



== Testing data ==

TBD

== Release packages ==

=== Current limitations ===

* Slicer application and extension package are hosted on Kitware server in NewYork, download of Slicer packages is slow when done on the West Coast of from Europe.

=== Path forward ===

==== Use of GitHub Releases ====

* Upload existing release as Github release + update download.slicer.org to get release from github
* (Stats from Github release is only a scalar, we would probably need to keep track of the value every day)
* Slicer nightly package would be uploaded as a pre-release

==== Leverage IPFS ====

TBD