Data Browser causes Azul to make redundant TDR requests

[hannes-ucsc]

Data Browser makes concurrent requests against /index and /summary endpoints and that kicks off two simultaneous requests against TDRs enumerateSnapshots endpoint. By staggering the /summary request to occur after the /index request returns, we can eliminate that request and halve the load on TDR. It would also speed up the /index response (since it won't be competing with the concurrent /summary request) and cause a better, more responsive UX. Sometimes serializing things actually makes reduces the overall time needed. This is one of those cases.

For background see here:

https://ucsc-gi.slack.com/archives/C705Y6G9Z/p1666748331379769?thread_ts=1666724068.705709&cid=C705Y6G9Z

• Security design review completed; the Resolution of this issue does not …
  • … affect authentication; for example:
    • OAuth 2.0 with the application (API or Swagger UI)
    • Authentication of developers with Google Cloud APIs
    • Authentication of developers with AWS APIs
    • Authentication with a GitLab instance in the system
    • Password and 2FA authentication with GitHub
    • API access token authentication with GitHub
    • Authentication with
  • … affect the permissions of internal users like access to
    • Cloud resources on AWS and GCP
    • GitLab repositories, projects and groups, administration
    • an EC2 instance via SSH
    • GitHub issues, pull requests, commits, commit statuses, wikis, repositories, organizations
  • … affect the permissions of external users like access to
    • TDR snapshots
  • … affect permissions of service or bot accounts
    • Cloud resources on AWS and GCP
  • … affect audit logging in the system, like
    • adding, removing or changing a log message that represents an auditable event
    • changing the routing of log messages through the system
  • … affect monitoring of the system
  • … introduce a new software dependency like
    • Python packages on PYPI
    • Command-line utilities
    • Docker images
    • Terraform providers
  • … add an interface that exposes sensitive or confidential data at the security boundary
  • … affect the encryption of data at rest
  • … require persistence of sensitive or confidential data that might require encryption at rest
  • … require unencrypted transmission of data within the security boundary
  • … affect the network security layer; for example by
    • modifying, adding or removing firewall rules
    • modifying, adding or removing security groups
    • changing or adding a port a service, proxy or load balancer listens on
• Documentation on any unchecked boxes is provided in comments below

[hannes-ucsc]

This has been in the sprint column for ages. Is this actually being worked on? And why is the estimate 0?

[theathorn]

There is nothing incorrect about the current Data Browser behavior, but the assumption is that a simple change "staggering the /summary request after the /index request (on a per user basis), and rendering the table when the /index request returns should improve the UX on initial visits". Adding request synchronization within the web service would be much more complex.

In summary if this a simple change we have an easy UX performance win.