Download files directly from Content Source [since 9.7]

In Enterprise Server 9.7, improvements have been made in order to make communications with external file sources faster. It allows for clients to request direct file links to a Content Source, with which they can download file content directly from the Content Source, instead of it having to go through Enterprise Server first.

This omits Enterprise Server having to download the file content from the Content Source to a temporary folder and sending it to the requestor through DIME or Transfer Server.

In order to facilitate this new feature, the GetObjects service has been expanded with two extra options:

• RequestInfo has been expanded with a ContentSourceFileLinks option. Setting this option tells Enterprise Server that direct content source file links are requested by the client.
• SupportedContentSources has been added as a property. It contains a list of Content Sources that the requestor can directly access in order to download the file content.
  Note: If the requested object does not match any of the content sources given here, Enterprise will default to the old behaviour.

Aside from this, the Attachment element has a new ContentSourceFileLink property. This property may contain a direct link to the Content Source file when this has been requested.

Below is an example using Elvis as the Content Source. Requesting an object that originates from Elvis can be done as follows:

<GetObjectsRequest>
	...
	<RequestInfo>ContentSourceFileLinks</RequestInfo>
	...
	<SupportedContentSources>ELVIS</SupportedContentSources>
	...
</GetObjectsRequest>

Which returns a response like the following:

<GetObjectsResponse>
	<Objects>
		<Object>
			...
			<Files>
				<Attachment>
					...
					<FileUrl xsi:nil="true"/>
					...
					<ContentSourceFileLink>http://...</ContentSourceFileLink>
					...
				</Attachment>
				...
			</Files>
			...
		</Object>
	<Objects>
</GetObjectsResponse>

When talking to an older version of Enterprise Server or when the direct download feature is not supported by the Content Source, the returned ContentSourceFileLink is set to nil. In that case, the client should fall back to the FileUrl or Content elements instead to download the file via resp. the File Transfer Server or Enterprise Server (DIME).