I have the following opinion about the proposed definition for a data service: "A service that exposes the capabilities or data of one or more data resources within a service-oriented architecture." The definition just tells me that Data Service just exposes the capabilities and/or data of data resource(s). But, it does not tell me if I can access this service to invoke those capabilities or the data of a data resource. If this is true, then, 'service' is too strong a term. It should be 'data resource descriptor'. Else, 'service that exposese the capabilities or data' has to be rephrased. Because it is not only exposing but also allowing the user to access those capabilities. I also agree to what bob natale had to say. The definition of data resource should evolve and be included with the definition of data service. Allen Luniewski <luniew@us.ibm.com> wrote:

From the Data Architecture glossary: Data sink: A data resource that receives the data copied by a data transfer mechanism from a source. Data Source: A data resource that contains the data to be copied to a sink via a data transfer mechanism. Informally, Data Architecture, and DMI for that matter, use these terms to denote the end points of a data transfer operation.

A data resource is defined as: An entity (and its associated framework) that provides a data access mechanism or can act as a source or sink. (This is what currently on Grid Forge but source/sink really mean data source/sink). So, a data resource is the "thing" that both holds data and provides mechanisms for accessing its contents. Think of a data resource as something like a relational database or a file system as we have had for decades while the Data Architecture defines interfaces (services) that "front" a data resource, making it a participant in the service oriented architecture being defined by OGSA. Allen Luniewski IBM Cross Brand Services IBM Silicon Valley Laboratory 555 Bailey Ave. San Jose, CA 95141 408-463-2255 408-930-1844 (mobile) guru prasad <guru_bn@yahoo.com> Sent by: ogsa-wg-bounces@ogf.org 07/05/2007 10:54 AM To Mario Antonioletti <mario@epcc.ed.ac.uk>, Dave Berry <daveb@nesc.ac.uk> cc ogsa-d-wg@ogf.org, ogsa-wg <ogsa-wg@ogf.org> Subject Re: [ogsa-wg] [OGSA-D-WG] Definition of "data service" This brings me to this question: What is the difference between and data source and a data resource? Is former just the container for data and latter is responsible for managing one or more data sources? Mario Antonioletti <mario@epcc.ed.ac.uk> wrote: Hi,

Currently we're looking at something like the following:

A service that exposes the capabilities or data of one or more data resources within a service-oriented architecture.

I think it should be "the capabilities and data" as opposed to "or". Similarly for the definition below. However, I think the one above is more succinct and thus gets my vote.

or

A service that exposes the capabilities of one or more data resources within a service-oriented architecture. These capabilities might include data access, data transfer or data management.

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