CNRI Handle System Workshop: Second Half

Nigel Ward, Link Affiliates: Towards an Australian Persistent Identifier System: Thoughts on Services and Policy

Well, I already know what he's saying, having reviewed the presentation last night...

Larry Lannom: Grid Identifier Service

Globus approached CNRI, liked the persistent identifiers, distributed and scalable as they are, and could be embedded in Grid software.

Challenges: lots of local prefix (namespace) administration: much greater scale than existing CNRI practice. This means GHR queries may have to be passed on to delegate. This has been prototyped but not deployed; anticipate implementation next year. Can register and resolve Handles through standard grid protocol --- fully embedded in the Grid.

To do more than just HTTP redirects, need to do interpretation of Handle records, with intelligent Handle types. Handle does not validate types, though apps may. Developers do make up types, but that compromises interop.

So every Handle type should be a registered Handle. hdl:0.TYPE/ is cumbersome and restricted to CNRI. Recommend people use their own custom Handles. CNRI are creating Handle Value Type registry, to search for types, and open to the public (policies TBD, but look to be minimalist). Can be used by apps for custom transformation. A schema for types is in internal testing. e.g. 0.TYPE/URL : 10320/HVT-R : . Some fields can be developed with reference to existing fields; e.g. MIME types and RFCs, which should themselves have Handles.