Terms - Proposals

[Martin @ ROE]

Tony Linde wrote:

>> data centre (or center)

A center where data is kept :-) A physical location with a defined team 
that hold and manage published data.  For example, the ROE WFCAM 
datacenter.  The OpenSky Portal.  VizieR.  Might often be the same as 
'site' where a site has only one datacenter.

[In AstroGrid we've tended to call a single PAL webapp a datacenter, but 
I don't think this is what most astronomers think of as a datacenter, or?]

>> service

A single application providing access to data (or other.. er.. 
resources...)  I'm not sure it makes much difference if you're talking 
about a web service with all it's webapps, or the individual webapps on 
them.  To the user it makes little difference, and to the developer also.

>> interface

Along with 'protocol', describes how you use a service.  SkyNode, NVO 
Cone search, SIAP and SSAP are all combinations of defined interfaces 
with defined protocols.

>> data collection
>> dataset (which I think is just my term for data collection)  

Perhaps we could consider a 'dataset' as the data from a particular 
instrument/survey, and a collection as number of datasets.  For example, 
SSA, USNO-B and 2MASS are three datasets in one data collection at the 
ROE datacenter...?

>>database  

The storage medium.  A database might be SQL Server, or a collection of 
FITS files.

>>table  

Hopefully self explanatory :-)  But there will be other terms used to 
describe elements of datasets - such as 'images' which are another can 
of worms*.

>>mirror  
>>copy  

Variations (or not) on the same dataset/collection.

>>application  

A process that transforms data.

>>function (as in what an app does)

I think that's a fair description!

>>I've left out 'resource' deliberately - it is a somewhat 
>>loaded term. And I've tried to keep to the higher level 
>>entities at this stage.

Fair enough but I think it has a place here.  To me, there is a 
difference between a 'resource' (eg a dataset or part of it, or storage 
space, or CPU time, or an application, or a document) and 
'service/interface' (the way(s) in which you can reach these resources). 
   I think it is fairly common practice to make this distinction.

I'll get my raincoat.

Cheers

Martin

*Apologies for englishisms**.  I couldn't think of anything more 
suitable, and I'm sure there must be equivelents in other languages!

**Recurse to above. Oh no! Stack overflow!

-- 
Martin Hill
Software Engineer, AstroGrid (ROE)
07901 55 24 66 (mobile)
0131 668 8326 (ROE)