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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Using RDDL as a Distributed Registry Architecture
 Hi Folks, I have a client that is developing a large, ebXML-based registry that will be deployed on the Web. I am not a big believer in large, centralized, heavyweight anything, especially if it's targeted for the Web. I would like to present to my client the idea of a distributed registry based upon RDDL collections. [A "RDDL collection" is a RDDL document plus all the documents it references] Below are some thoughts that are brewing in my mind to present to my client. All comments are welcome. 1. Key characteristics of the Web: - lightweight - distributed 2. The whole notion of my client's Registry is to create a centralized, heavyweight data pool where clients go to find the who, what, and where of services. UDDI has the same centralized, heavyweight mentality. This is not harmonious with the Web. 3. My client argues, "But we need a mechanism to store info about each service. The registry is the only way to accomplish this." The former is true. The later is not. There are alternatives... 4. RDDL (Resource Directory Description Language) is a lightweight, distributed mechanism for storing information about a namespace. The key notion of RDDL is to use namespaces in a dual role - both as an identifier, and as a pointer to a RDDL document. The RDDL document is a directory for the namespace. That is, it contains pointers to documents that you wish to associate with the namespace. Such documents include schemas, stylesheets, dictionary, spec (all the things that my client wants associated with a service in his registry). 5. My idea is that each client service be associated with a different namespace, and each namespace point to a RDDL document. Thus, the set of client metadata is distrbuted across all the RDDL documents. This yields a lightweight, distributed metadata mechanism - which is harmonious with the Web architecture. 6. "Since there is not a central registry to look for services, how do I locate services in a RDDL-based architecture?" Use a search engine! You may desire to create a search engine that is customized to your domain (I have anticipated for years that the use of generic search engines, such as google, will end, and domain-specific search engines will prevail) 7. Just like the body will reject infectious viruses, so too the Web will reject a centralized, heavyweight registry. Well, that's my thinking. Any comments? /Roger 
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