Service Description

This is incomplete, but is intended as a description of a service as embodied in the mygrid ontologies. It may not be the best way to go but its a start. We also have an application modified from another project PEDro which allows you to write service descriptions (in an XML format) adhering to this information model.

-- ChrisWroe - 21 Feb 2003

PEDroServiceRegistration details progress on using PEDro to describe and register a service

-- ChrisWroe - 06 May 2003

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The trial XML schema for describing services is DataModel.xml. A configuration file is also needed to relate elements of the schema with areas of the myGrid ontology ConfigurationFile.xml

A set of ontology flat files are also needed:

• mygrid-indented-list.txt
• format.txt
• Datatype.txt

A nascent documentation file:

• Service_Description.html

To use Pedro with these files:

• make a new folder pedro\dist\models\mygrid
• in a new resources subfolder copy the ontology flat files
• in a new model subfolder copy the DataModel^?.xml file
• in a new config subfolder copy the ConfigurationFile^?.xml file
• in a new doc subfolder copy the Service_Description.html file
• make a new data subfolder

I'll move this to CVS, if it becomes active.

ChrisWroe - 06 Mar 2003

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Index

Name		Superclass
ServiceDescription	Entity	DataThing
ServiceOperation	Entity	ActionDefintion (possibly)
ParameterType	Entity	Thing

Entities

ServiceDescription: A ServiceDescription describes a service. A service can actually provide many operations through multiple interfaces. Therefore the functional description is embodied in the description of each individual service operation.

The properties of a service description need to be decided. Many are inherited from parent entities such as DataThing and Thing. However, some specific business metadata should be described such as quality of service, access restrictions, location.

Also are we going to try and structure configuration information about using a service? For example "if you want to use a BLAST alignment operation you must first call the BLAST configuration operation with the following parameters which may change depending on your goal. " Is this related to ActionDefinition ?

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ServiceOperation: A ServiceOperation describes a single function of the service in terms of its inputs oputs and functionality.

• Inputs: [parameters] 0..many
• Outputs: [parameters] 0.many
• Task: ontology concept 0..1? (A very high level description of the task being performed e.g. retrieval)
• Method: [ontology concept] 0..many? (A description of algorithms used e.g. SmithWaterman^?)
• Resource: [ontology concept] 0..many (A description of information resources used to perform the service e.g. SWISS-PROT)
• Application: [ontology concept] 0..1? (A description of any application that the Web service operation is wrapping e.g. BLAST. Maybe this should be at the service description level)

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ParameterType: Hold information about the type of data that is expected to be passed in or produced from a service operation.

• Semantic type: ontology concept 0..1
• Format: ontology concept? This depends on how information about formats is stored within myGrid DataFormat.
• Concrete datatype: The basic type of data as described in a WSDL document for example. Often just String or Integer.

-- ChrisWroe - 21 Feb 2003