Registry workgroup report

[Tony Linde]

Current state of play wrt Registry workgroup.

A. Standards:
=============

A1. Tony Linde was supposed to have raised the RM document to PR level after
the last Interop meeting; this has only now been done. RFC will be issued as
soon as it is publicly available.

A2. Schema 0.9 has been tested by NVO, CDS and AstroGrid. Need to collate
reports on this and discuss any necessary amendments on workgroup list.

A3. Harvesting via OAI interface was agreed at Interop meeting and has been
implemented by NVO, CDS (for VizieR) and AstroGrid. Standard was not
comprehensive enough to ensure complete interoperability but AstroGrid and
NVO have successfully implemented two-way harvesting and have each harvested
CDS data (CDS service is publishing-only service).

B. Issues:
==========

B1. Need basic interface standard for all services and for data query
services so that registered services can be automatically invoked after
discovery. Work has begun on this in the Grid/Web Services and VOQL
workgroups.

B2. Harvesting: OAI interface needs to be nailed down; also need web service
version; need to discuss options for push vs pull vs on request; protocol to
minimise traffic (which services harvested).

B3. Data and metadata schema: three groups are working on variations of data
description (Registry, VOTable, DAL) - need a single effort to produce
schema usable by all.

C. What next:
=============

C1. Review learnings on implementation of harvesting & schema. Make changes
to draft recommendations and schedule new tests.

C2. Bring harvesting spec and resource schema up to agreed 1.0 standard and
issue as PR.

D. Options for new work:
========================

D1. Registry query language.

D2. Registry interfaces for query & resource maintenance.

D3. Schema for non-data resources (eg tools).


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/