WMS Web Services Install November 23

New date for November install

The new date for the November WMS Web services install is this Sunday, November 23rd. This install will include changes to two of our WMS APIs.

Web Services Changes

  • WMS Vendor Information Center API
    • This release introduces a new mime type: application/atom+json.  This change is required -  the previous response that used application/json was the Atom-wrapped version and will no longer work. This mimetype was added so that our APIs can produce JSON responses both with and without the AtomPub wrapper. This is similar to the way we offer both application/xml and application/atom+xml mime types in XML serializations.
    • We have also updated the schema for this API and there are two particular changes users should note:
      • for element loginType (in links and logins), enumeration value changed from “others” to “other”
      • for element baseDeliveryMethod, we removed the value “edi” and added the value “do_not_send”
    • This API now also support authentication by Access Token in addition to HMAC authentication.
  • WMS Acquisitions API  - ETags
    • We removed the ETag Filter (configuration) from this API to address a performance problem. This will have the greatest impact in searches as they usually return a lot of data. Because we’re removing ETags from the search response, we anticipate you’ll see improved performance.
    • When you’re working with a single object in GET/UPDATE requests, ETags are still supported and the ETag validation itself is not changed.
    • Read methods will no longer return the code 304 „Not Changed“ and will instead always return data and 200, even if the data has not changed.

Expected downtime

The WorldCat knowledge base API and all Web services that require user level authentication will be unavailable during the installation window which begins on Sunday at 2:00 am ET. Although we expect that the install will be complete within our normal maintenance window, we have included additional time in the estimates below for verification, if necessary. This will affect OCLC’s worldwide data centers as follows:  

  • US & Canada Data Centers: Nov. 23, 2:00 – 10:00 EST (Eastern Standard Time) USA
  • European Data Center:  Nov. 23,  8:00 – 16:00 CET (Central European Time)
  • Australian Data Center: Nov. 23,  18:00 –  Nov. 24, 2:00 AEDT (Australian Eastern Daylight Time)

We anticipate all services will be restored no later than Nov. 23 12:00 EST /  Nov. 23 18:00 CET /  Nov. 24 4:00 AEDT.  

WMS users will find more information about this release on the User Support Center.

Please drop us a note if you have any questions.