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| Paper: |
Building an Archive Backbone Extending TAP |
| Volume: |
485, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XXIII |
| Page: |
139 |
| Authors: |
Molinaro, M.; Apollo, P.; Knapic, C.; Smareglia, R. |
| Abstract: |
A data center (DC) willing to add VO (Virtual Observatory)
capabilities to existing archival resources, or new ones, will
probably face some issues regarding the constraints on the existing
structure of the datasets. On the opposite direction a DC may
want to give priority to VO flavored data access but maintain
flexibility on proprietary or dedicated access solutions. This
contribution tries to delineate a solution, feasible for both
approaches, taking advantage of the IVOA (International Virtual
Observatory Alliance) existing standards and, at the same time,
forcing no constraint at archive generation or ingestion level. The
IVOA TAP (Table Access Protocol) specification generalizes the way a
set of database schemas and tables, related or not, can be deployed as
a queryable resource in the framewok of the Virtual Observatory. The
TAP protocol itself has, at its core, a DB schema, named
TAP_SCHEMA, that actually acts as an attribute-extended
information schema for the exposed set of tables; the
TAP_SCHEMA, in short, describes the content of the schemas and
tables, and their connections, in a VO aware flavour. It seems then
quite immediate to think about pushing the generalization step a
little further, i.e. to extend the TAP_SCHEMA itself to provide
a more general description of an astrophysical archive (or part of
it). Here we discuss on how, adding optional tables and columns to the
TAP_SCHEMA, it would be possible to create an archive thin
layer solution in terms of this DB schema alongside with a content
manager application for it. The goal is to provide a re-usable,
configurable connection between an archive's back end and front end,
having the benefit of creating a VO translation layer to ease VO
resource and service deployment and preserving custom data access and
publishing. |
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