problems with info command

[Sheer El-Showk <sheer@saraf.com>]

Hi,

I think the current EPP "info" command has several shortcomings that will
have significant bearing on performance (especially considering it is
likeley to be the second most popular command after "check").

First, the mandatory inclusion of sub-ordinate hosts, on which there is
no specified limit for a domain, means that a domain query will be that
much more expensive of a command.  Each info command will now have to
determine a second set of relations and return an arbitrarily large
data set.  From an implementation perspective it seems like a much better
idea to provide an option (as in the transfer command) specifying which
kind of nameserver's should be displayed along with the domain -- subordinate
or delegate.

Second, the ability of non-owning registrars to query each others registry
objects strikes me as a very serious performance concern.  Registrars can
now start treating the registry database like a whois database and data
mining it.  I've heard arguments that this is a good thing since the
registrars are a controlled community with controlled access, but I don't
think this is valid.  First, registrars allow resellers automated access
to their systems and resellers are not a controlled community.  Second, this
offloads whois work onto the core registry database and attempts to make
the latter serve as the former.  However, the two systems exist in in very
different operating environments.  The whois systems have the luxury of lazy
sychronization, simplistic load-balancing, and are primarily read-only.
The core registry database, however is very expensive/difficult to
load-balance and must bear the burden of write and read locking (I'm not
being database specific -- this is a operational limitation of any kind of
database serving as a registry canonical store).  Essentially there can be
at most a few instances of a registry database and it is extremely
expensive to synchronize them, while it is trivial to replicate whois
databases.

regards,
Sheer