Hello again,
In response to the THREDDS reviewers questions and answers, Stefano Nativi
(our THREDDS international technical liaison) sent me a thoughtful
suggestion that I am relaying to you (at the end of this message) because I
believe it is the sort of topic we should discuss at our first THREDDS
Technical Task Force (T3F) meeting.
-- Ben
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As far as XML framework and vocabulary are concerned:
In my opinion, THREDDS should develop a shared XML framework in order to
realise middleware components and make systems interoperable.
It is possible to refer to the following interoperability architecture (in
brackets are reported the most interesting specifications):
1) Service discovery level (UDDI);
2) Service description level (WSDL);
3) Web services level (XML Protocol, ebXML, SOAP);
4) Data format specification level (DTD, XML Schema, XMI);
5) Data representation level (XML, XML namespaces);
6) Communication protocol level (TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, FTP).
THREDDS should develop shared open component specifications for each
interoperability levels, mainly utilising XML-based technologies.
In particular, for the Data format specification interoperability level
THREDDS will introduce a shared XML vocabulary. Such vocabulary will
concern several Scientific Communities and disciplinary worlds; it shall
consider the underway effort of the international standardisation process
(e.g. ISO TC211).
A possible solution can be to set up a User-Group for each Scientific
Community in order to capture and formalise the content and the semantics
of every disciplinary world; it is useful to reach a general and shared
consensus on the THREDDS vocabulary types and structures.
