IESR, the JISC IE and beyond

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Distributed Service Registry Workshop Andy
Powell, UKOLN, University of Bath a.powell_at_ukoln.a
c.uk Distributed Service Registry Workshop,
Warwick, 2005
UKOLN is supported by
www.bath.ac.uk
www.ukoln.ac.uk
a centre of expertise in digital information
management
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House keeping notes

• Mobiles - please can all mobiles be switched off
  whilst in the meeting
• Smoking - is only permitted in the designated
  areas of the conference centre
• Internet - wireless access in lounge (wired in
  bedrooms) or Internet Cafe
• Meals - lunch will be served at the times stated
  on the programme in the restaurant on both
  Thursday and Friday. The workshop dinner will
  take place in the restaurant at 7.30 pm.
  Breakfast 7.30 to 8.30
• Accommodation - all extras (newspapers/drinks)
  should be paid for on departure by delegates.
  Any questions regarding accommodation please
  speak to the Reception Desk
• All other questions - please speak to Natasha who
  will be at the registration desk

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What are we here to do?

• share knowledge of current approaches in the area
  of service registries
• consider the policies, IPR and data ownership
  issues, metadata schema(s) and protocol(s)
  necessary to achieve global interoperability of
  distributed DL service registries
• agree future work, funding sources and
  partnerships in this area

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Why are we here to do it?

• growing availability of online digital
  collections and their associated services
• trend towards Service Oriented Architecture
• JISC Information Environment and eFramework, GRID
  Services, DLF Frameworks activity, VIEWS,
• trend towards use of SOAP and Web Services
  generally
• trend(?) towards use of portlets (WSRP, etc.)

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What does this mean

• significant growth in number of m2m services with
  which applications can interact
• requirement to disclose/discover services
• in m2m ways
• (and in human-oriented ways sometimes!)
• on a global basis
• tempting to see service registries as being
  like the DNS
• but how do we do this and what are the issues?
• technical (UDDI, OAI-PMH, ZeeRex, metadata),
  policy, business, IPR, operational, etc., etc.

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the University of err Warwick
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Registry distribution
UDDI
UDDI
EDINA SR
UDDI
Institutional SR
Grid SR
UDDI
JISC IE SR
ExLibris SR
UDDI
UDDI
Pure UDDI
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Registry distribution (2)
UDDI/OAI-PMH/SRW
UDDI
EDINA SR
UDDI
Institutional SR
Grid SR
UDDI
JISC IE SR
ExLibris SR
UDDI
UDDI/OAI-PMH/SRW/Z39.50
Hybrid UDDI
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Registry distribution (3)
UDDI/OAI-PMH/SRW
UDDI
EDINA SR
UDDI
Institutional SR
Grid SR
OAI-PMH
JISC IE SR
ExLibris SR
Hybrid digitallibrary
UDDI
UDDI/OAI-PMH/SRW/Z39.50
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JISC IE

• set the original scope of the IESR
• to describe collections and services in the JISC
  IE
• but what does in mean?
• e.g. are the Nature and ingenta RSS feeds in or
  out?

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Grid/eScience

• the Grid Engineering Task Force is currently
  building a networkof service registries
• one per eScienceCentre
• based on UDDI
• jUDDI (Java-basedsoftware platform)
• focus on servicesrather thancollections?

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NISO Metasearch

• (see Pete Johnstons presentation)
• library portal vendors often already offer and
  maintain a service registry in the form of a
  configuration database or knowledge base
• part of the package i.e. youve already paid
  for it!
• what is the vendor view of the IESR
• a useful source of info?
• a chance to off-load a maintenance headache?
• a competing product in the market-place?

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Web services/eCommerce

• integration of Web services in eBusiness/eCommerce
  sector seems to be the main driving force behind
  UDDI
• but public registries at www.uddi.org still
  completely unusable
• perception that UDDI spec is highly complex
• tool availability largely limited to Java
• note that simpler use of WSDL (e.g. see
  www.xmethods.com) is more successful

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ELF and VRE

• the JISC E-Learning Framework and Virtual
  Research Environments
• attempts to develop service-oriented approach
  (SOA) to learning management systems and research
  tools
• break monolithic systems into smaller service
  components
• typically instantiated using SOAP or REST
• potentially leading to big increase in number of
  services requiring registration

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Portals and portlets

• gradual increase in use of portal frameworks like
  uPortal for delivering institutional portals
• integration of multiple portlets within single
  personalised framework
• many portlets delivered within the institution
  (i.e. intranet services)
• in combination with internal ELF and VRE related
  activity leads to pressure to deliver
  institutional (i.e. closed) service registry

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Distributing the IESR

• conclusion of all this is that the IESR cannot be
  seen as monolithic service
• need to approach it more like the DNS than like
  Athens!
• need to think about approaches for distributing
  the IESR across multiple (probably many!) players
• UDDI
• digital library technologies like OAI-PMH
• P2P approaches?

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Re-using existing data

• also need to take advantage of existing sources
  of service and collection descriptions
• Z39.50 Explain
• Z39.50/SRW ZeeRex
• OAI-PMH friends and neighbours Identify
  response
• RSS channel lists using OPML (Outline Processor
  Markup Language)
• i.e. need to populate service registries with
  existing work whenever possible - rather than
  causing new work

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Other shared services

• also need to think about the interfaces between a
  distributed SR and other shared services?
• e.g. who answers the question which services
  expose metadata that conforms to the UK LOM
  Core?
• the IESR (which holds details about services)?
• the IEMSR (which holds information about metadata
  usage)?
• or some combination of both? If so how?
• choreography of multiple services still an issue

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Conclusion and issues

• only one real conclusion that the future must be
  distributed rather than centralised
• but, if so, do issues of
• ownership
• workflow
• terminology
• quality assurance
• get harder or easier (I think they get easier!)

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Questions