Provider Registries
All distributed networks need a central registry to know what services are available where. BioCASE has its own registry called CORM (COReMetadatabase), but is about to also use the UDDI registry of GBIF.
BioCASE, DiGIR, TAPIR and UDDI are not just a flat list of services, but build on top of a hierarchy of entities. The table below tries to relate and explain those entities. The lowest entity varies depending on what kind of data is being exchanged. The table below illustrates the entities for specimens (units).
Explanations are behind the links!
| UDDI | GBIF Index | DiGIR | BioCASE | TAPIR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| business | business | provider/host | provider/host | host |
| service | service | --- | datasource | datasource |
| --- | resource | resource | --- | --- |
| Entities below are specific for specimen services like DwC and ABCD only. They are not generic to all services and therefore are not treated in UDDI. | ||||
| --- | Collection | Collection | Collection | Collection |
Bernd
So the different systems differ mostly at which level they apply separate service endpoints. A DiGIR resource from its content is more or less equivalent to a BioCASE/TAPIR datasource, but does not have its own accesspoint. Thats why the mapping of BioCASE, DiGIR and TAPIR into a single registry like GBIFs Index is sometimes confusing.