[tdwg-tapir] Hosting strategies

[Renato De Giovanni]

Hi Roger,

The speciesLink network makes use of regional servers to mirror data from
collections that cannot set up a provider service. Some of them still use
dial-up connections for instance. The following diagram is not up-to-date
but gives an idea of how many collections are using this approach in the
network:

http://splink.cria.org.br/manager/pdf/esquema.pdf

We had to define our own protocol to achieve this. It's based on SOAP and
it has limitations such as only handling tabular data, but it does its
job. We developed a client software in Java which is installed on
providers' machines and has many interesting features. The newest ones
include automatic updates of the software, and the possiblity of choosing
mapping templates for specific collection management systems.

Best Regards,
--
Renato


> Hi Everyone,
>
> There is a requirement that all wrapper type applications (TAPIR,
> DiGIR, BioCASe and others) have but that I don't think we address.
>
> All instances need to have:
>
> Either a database on a server in a DMZ or with an ISP with the
> ability to export data from the production database to the public
> database and then keep changes in the production database synchronize
> with the public database.
>
> Or the ability to provide a secured/restricted connection directly to
> production database through the firewall.
>
> Configuring the wrapper software against a database seems a smaller
> problem than getting a handle on an up to date database to configure
> it against!
>
> Should we have a recommended strategy or best practice for overcoming
> these problems? Do we have any figures on how they are overcome in
> the existing BioCASe and DiGIR networks?
>
> Many thanks for your thoughts,
>
> Roger