Understanding Snapshots

Snapshots provide a mechanism to move large volumes of data, or any data that consists of more than an individual transaction, through the creation of structured files, the transport of those files, and a set of service operations that allows integrated systems to request, generate, and load in those files.

In previous versions of SAIP, the only supported mechanism to generate snapshots was a request from an external system, such as a learning management system (LMS). The LMS would send a request for a snapshot to SAIP, which would: return a response acknowledging the request, generate the appropriate file, place the file in a predefined location, and send an announcement back to the requestor that signified the response was complete and identified the file location.

With the final version of the IMS LIS 2.0 specification, the consumer-requested pattern is still supported and a second pattern, often referred to as "provider initiated," is also supported. The provider-initiated pattern allows a system of record (such as a student information system) to generate a snapshot and send a notification to a consuming system (such as an LMS) that the snapshot has been generated and where that snapshot can be found, so that the consuming system can uptake the file. Both of these patterns are now managed under the IMS LIS BulkDataExchangeManagement service.