All,

I've just been in a discussion reviewing the OGSA Data Scenarios and some questions arose regarding the OGSA naming services. In particular, we were looking at the replication section of the draft OGSA Data Architecture, which includes the text given below.

My first question is: will the first three operations listed below be provided by the OGSA naming activity?  To put this very succinctly, will a replica catalog be simply an instance of a resolution service defined by the OGSA-naming WG?

My second question is: will the OGSA-naming WG define resolution services that associated arbitrary metadata with names?  The reason we ask is that the discussion about RNS/WS-Directory seems to require that a directory service can associate attributes with entries in the directory.  If this is so, will the same requirement apply to resolution services for abstract names -> addresses?  If these resolution services are managing attributes, do they allow queries over these attributes?  If so, what will be the difference between a resolution service and a general registry service or metadata catalog?

Here is the text referred to:

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Dave Berry
Deputy Director, Research & E-infrastructure Development
National e-Science Centre, 15 South College Street
Edinburgh, EH8 9AA                  +44 131 651 4039