[ogsa-wg] [OGSA-D-WG] Definition of "data service"

[Donal K. Fellows]

guru prasad wrote:
> Thank you for your comments Allen.
> 
> In that case I vote for Dave Berry's definition:
> 
> "A service that provides interfaces to the capabilities and data of one 
> or more data resources within a service-oriented architecture."

There is a separate question as to whether the data *is* a capability; I
suspect it is, at least in some abstract sense. On the other hand, you
might wish to distinguish the data as a special kind of capability that
needs non-generic handling.

> and the Data Resource is .....

A data resource is an abstraction of a file, so I'd imagine that you'd
want to describe it as a resource that is an ordered collection of
organized information. (The idea is that it doesn't have to be in a
file, but it does have many file-like characteristics.) It's strongly
beneficial to the overall OGSA if you can have data resources being a
subclass of resources (by referencing the OGSA glossary).

Donal.