StandardInterfaces V0.1

[Tony Linde]

Firstly, I'm glad Wil has done this and given us something to shoot at. We
need to agree this before we set any more specific services.

General:
- why restrict this to web services? We should be able to agree more than
one way of implementing services: web service and cgi as a minimum I guess.

2.1: 
- most s/w will view the registry as the authoritative source of metadata.
If the service administrator has not updated the entry in the registry (or
caused it to be harvested) then it won't be recognised by services using the
registry.

- metadata document is the RM (Resource Metadata) : not RSM (Resource &
Metadata)

- maybe a link to the document area would be useful here

SI-1:
- chicken and egg here: does the metadata returned include the authorityId
and resourceKey? If so, how is this got? Manually by administrator first, I
guess.

SI-2:
- do we really need this? Most harvesting will be done by using the Metadata
i/f and a "since" keyword, so will return changes since some date. 

General:
- do we need to have services harvestable for their metadata? How often will
a service's metadata change? If infrequently, it is a waste of time for the
registry to ask it each night (or whenever) for metadata changes. And if we
end up with tens of thousands of services will burden the registry. Can we
not put the onus on the service to update its metadata on the registry
whenever a change is made? And then the registries just harvest data from
each other. So replace SI-1 and SI-2 with...

SI-1: All VO services will update the registry with which they are
registered with any changes to metadata.

SI-3: 
- I'm not sure this is necessary. Uptime might be used. ValidTo is unlikely
to be kept up to date. ContactDetails are in the metadata. Position: why do
we need this?

SI-4:
- there may be privacy issues with returning what people are doing. This
should be optional I think.


I'll flag this spec up to the AstroGrid developers and get them to provide
their own comments.

Cheers,
Tony. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-grid at eso.org [mailto:owner-grid at eso.org] On 
> Behalf Of Tony Linde
> Sent: 14 January 2004 10:59
> To: Grid_Ivoa_List
> Subject: StandardInterfaces V0.1
> 
> 
> Wil posted a draft for a standard interface at:
>  
> http://www.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/IvoaGridAndWebServices/Stand
> ardInterfaces-
> 0.1.pdf
> 
> but I don't remember a notice here. So this is it. Apologies 
> if I missed it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tony. 
> 
> __
> Tony Linde                 
> Phone:  +44 (0)116 223 1292    Mobile: +44 (0)7753 603356
> Fax:    +44 (0)116 252 3311    Email:  ael at star.le.ac.uk
> Post:   Department of Physics & Astronomy,
>         University of Leicester
>         Leicester, UK   LE1 7RH
> 
> Project Manager,            Director,
> AstroGrid                   Leicester e-Science Centre
> http://www.astrogrid.org    http://www.e-science.le.ac.uk/
> 
>