Service provider for Fedora

[Stefano Cossu]

Following up the discussion around the Fedora API extension architecture [1] and the use cases that I laid out earlier in the wiki [2], as well as the ideas around a common development framework for Hydra and Islandora, I wanted to share some ideas about a possible service provider for Fedora. 

This service provider should fulfill tasks that are common to Hydra, Islandora and custom clients which do not belong in the Fedora core. Examples can be a content model architecture, a dissemination facility, a search and discovery engine which uses arbitrary indices, access control for both the repo and the indices, etc. 

One goal for this is to reduce duplicate code in the existing clients and making it easier to pick Hydra, Islandora or a custom-built front end for Fedora, or even multiple concurrent front ends. Another one is to establish a flexible protocol for the kind of tasks mentioned above and make it easier to extend this functionality. 

I have attached a graph of the proposed architecture. 

The content model would be driven by configuration rather than coding. That is, by adopting a language that can express relationships between classes and properties, and constraints on those classes and properties (e.g. OWL), the application would be able to interpret that language to validate contents. 

In a similar way, the dissemination architecture would rely on a RDF-ish configuration that binds resource types, content models and service bindings. 

This is a very rough and high-level idea with several unresolved points, but I thought it would be worth sharing with the community to have a feedback. 

Thanks,

Stefano

[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UHQMXgnGoIXfe33a6CM6k3IkL3SsYqzkkWBRMaJxMew/edit

[2] https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/FF/AIC+Use+Cases:+API+Extension+Architecture

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Stefano Cossu
Director of Applications Development, Collections
Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL  60603
312-499-4026

[Andrew Woods]

Hello Stefano,

Thank you for sharing your specific use cases and thinking around the recent Fedora API Extension Architecture. Later this week there will be a message to the community looking for collaboration on moving this effort forward. I hope that you, Wei Shi, Egbert Gramsbergen and others will take advantage of such a collaboration to establish a framework by which important, yet external to Fedora, capabilities can be integrated in a common fashion.

Regards,

Andrew

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[Stefano Cossu]

Andrew, 

Sounds great. Looking forward to collaborating to the framework design with the Hydra and Islandora communities. 

Stefano

[Egbert Gramsbergen]

This is looking really good. I do not really have the time to contribute or even comment much now, but I want to say that I greatly value this new development. J

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