Scratch page for working on the VOSpace specification.

Abstract

VOSpace is a SOAP interface for access to data stores.

This version applies the VOSpace concept to flat, unconnected data spaces.
Future versions of the specification will add extensions to support a hierarchical structure and links between the individual space services.

Introduction

VOSpace is an interface standard for data stores. It specifies how VO agents and applications can use network attached data stores to persist and exchange data in a standard way.

A VOSpace web service is an access point for a distributed storage network. Through this access point, a client can:

• add or delete data objects;
• manipulate metadata for the data objects;
• obtain URIs through which the content of the data objects can be accessed.

VOSpace does not define how the data is stored or transferred, only the control messages to gain access. Thus, the VOSpace interface can readily be added to an existing storage system.

When we speak of “a VOSpace”, we mean the arrangement of data accessible through one particular VOSpace service. A VOSpace node represents a data object within a VOSpace service.

Nodes in VOSpace have unique identifiers expressed as URIs in the vos:// scheme, as defined below.

In this version of the standard, each VOSpace service provides a single, flat set of data objects, similar to a service described by the earlier VOStore standard; this version of the VOSpace specification supercedes VOStore.

Future versions of the VOSpace specification may provide support for a hierarchical arrangement of objects within a space, and may provide support for VOSpace services to be linked such that a client can navigate them as one global space.

Services implementing the current version of the specification can be linked in as leaf nodes of this global space without needing to change.

VOSpace identifiers

The identifier for a node in VOSpace shall be a URI with the scheme vos.

Such a URI shall have the following parts with the meanings and encoding rules defined in RFC2396 [2].

• scheme;
• naming authority;
• path;
• (optional) query;
• (optional) fragment identifier;

The naming authority for a VOSpace node shall be the VOSpace service through which the node was created. The authority part of the URI shall be constructed from the IVO registry identifier [2] for that service by deleting the ivo:// prefix and changing all forward-slash characters(‘/’) in the resource key to exclamation marks (‘!’).

This is an example of a possible VOSpace identifier.

vos://org.astrogrid.cam!vospace!container-6/siap-out-1.vot?foo=bar#baz

• vos:// is the URI scheme for the identifier.

Using a separate URI scheme for VOSpace identifiers enables clients to distinguish between IVO registry identifiers and VOSpace identifiers.

• org.astrogrid.cam!vospace!container-6

is the authority part of the URI, corresponding to the IVO registry identifier

• ivo://org.astrogrid.cam/vospace/container-6.

This is the IVO registry identifier of the VOSpace service that contains the node.

• /siap-out-1.vot is the path part of the URI.

Slashes in the path imply a hierarchical arrangement of data, as is normal with URIs. Since the current version of the specification does not support data hierarchies, an identifier for a node in a current service must have one slash at the start of the path and no other slashes.

• ?foo=baz is a query string and thus is something to which the VOSpace service is supposed to respond.

No queries of this nature are defined in the current version of the specification, but the query string system is reserved for use in later versions of the VOSpace specification.

• #baz is a fragment identifier. Its meaning attaches to the data returned from the VOSpace node, not to the node itself.

The fragment identifier should be interpreted by the client, not by the VOSpace service; the service shall ignore any fragment identifiers .

A VOSpace identifier is globally unique, and identifies one specific node in a specific VOSpace service.

A client should use the following procedure to resolve access to a VOSpace node from a VOSpace identifier:

• Extract the authority part of the VOSpace URI.
• Convert the authority back to the IVO registry identifier of the VOSpace service by changing any ‘!’ characters to ‘/’ and adding the ivo:// prefix.
• Resolve the IVO registry identifier to an endpoint for the VOSpace service using the IVO resource registry.
• Access the node via the endpoint using one of the web service methods defined in this standard.

Given the example identifier vos://org.astrogrid.cam!vospace!container-6/siap-out-1.vot?foo=bar#baz, this would mean:

• Extract the authority part of the VOSpace URI
  • org.astrogrid.cam!vospace!container-6

• Convert the authority back to the IVO registry identifier of the VOSpace service by changing any ‘!’ characters to ‘/’
  • org.astrogrid.cam/vospace/container-6

• and adding the ivo:// prefix
  • ivo://org.astrogrid.cam/vospace/container-6

• The client can then use the IVO registry to resolve the VOSpace service endpoint from the IVO identifier

VOSpace data model

Data model diagram :

• Node property needs 'readonly' attribute.
• View needs 'original' attribute.

Nodes and node types

The type of a VOSpace node determines how the VOSpace service stores and interprets the node data.
The types are arranged in a hierarchy, with more detailed types inheriting the structure of more generic types.

The following types are defined:

• Node is the most basic type.
• DataNode describes a data item stored in the VOSpace.
• UnstructuredDataNode describes a data item for which the VOSpace does not understand the data format.

When data is stored and retrived from an UnstructuredDataNode , the bit pattern read back shall be identical to that written

• StructuredDataNode describes a data item for which the space understands the format and may make transformations that preserve the meaning of the data.

When data is stored and retrived from a StructuredDataNode, the bit pattern returned may be different to the original. For example, storing tabular data from a VOTable file will preserve the tabular data, but any comments in the original XML file may be lost.

A Node has the following elements:

• uri : the vos://... identifier for the node , URI-encoded according to RFC2396 [2].
• properties : a set of metadata properties for the node .

A DataNode has the following elements:

• accepts : a list of the views (data formats) that the node can accept.
• provides : a list of the views (data formats) that the node can provide.
• busy : a boolean flag to indicate that the data associated with the node cannot be accessed .

The busy flag is used to indicate that an internal operation is in progress, and the node data is not available.

In the current version of the specification, all nodes are either structured or unstructured data nodes .

Future versions of the specification may introduce new types of nodes.

The set of node types defined by this standard is closed; new types may be introduced only via new versions of the standard.

To comply with the standard, a client or service must be able to parse XML representations of all the node types defined in the current specification.

Note - This does not require all services to support all of the Node types, just that it can process an XML request containing any of the types. If the service receives a request for a type that it does not support, the service should return a TypeNotSupported fault. The service must not throw an XML parser error if it receives a request for a type that it does not support.

Properties

Properties are simple string based metadata properties associated with a node.

Individual Properties should contain simple short string values, not large blocks of information. If a system needs to attach a large ammount of metadata to a node, then it should either use multiple small Properties, or a single Property containing a URI or URL pointing to an external resource that contains the additional metadata.

A Property has the following elements:

• uri : the Property identifier.
• value : the string value of the Property.
• readOnly : a boolean flag to indicate that the Property cannot be changed by the client.

Properties may be set by the client or the service.

Property values

Unless they have special meaning to the service or client, Properties are treated as simple string values.

Some Properties may have meaning to the service. others may have meaning only to one specific type of client .
A service implementation does not need to understand the meaning of all the Properties of a node, any Properties that it does not understand can simply be stored as text strings.

Property identifiers

Every new type of Property requires a unique URI to identify the Property and its meaning.

The rules for the Propertiy identifiers are similar to the rules for namespace URIs in XML schema. The only restriction is that it must be a vaild (unique) URI.

• An XML schema namespace identifier can be just a simple URN, e.g. urn:my-namespace
• Within the IVOA, the convention for namespace identifiers is to use a HTTP URL pointing to the namespace schema or a resource describing it

The current VOSpace schema defines Property identifiers as anyURI. The only restriction is that it must be a vaild (unique) URI.

• A Property URI can be a simple URN, e.g. urn:my-property

This may be sufficient for testing and development on a private system, but it is not scalable for use on a public service.
For a production system, any new Properties should have unique URIs that can be resolved into to a description of the Property.

Ideally, these should be IVO registry URIs that point to a description registered in the IVO registry.

• e.g. ivo://my-registry/vospace/properties/my-property

Using an IVO registry URI to identify Properties has two main advantages

• IVO registry URIs are by their nature unique, which makes it easy to ensure that different teams do not accidentally use the same URI.
• If the IVO registry URI points to a description registered in the IVO registry, this provides a mechanism to discover what the Property means.

Property descriptions

If the URI for a particular Property is resolvable, i.e. an IVO registry identifier or a HTTP URL, then it should point to an XML resource that describes the Property.

A Property description should describe the data type and meaning of a Property .

A PropertyDescription should have the following members.

• uri : the formal URI of the Property
• DisplayName : A simple text display name of the Property
• Description : Text block the meaning and validation rules of the Property

A PropertyDescription may have the following optional members.

• UCD : the Universal Content Descriptor (in the UCD1+ scheme) for the Property
• Unit : the unit of measurement of the Property

The information in a Property description can be used to generate a UI for displaying and modifiying the different types of Properties.

Note that at the time of writing, the schema for registering PropertyDescriptions in the IVO registry has not been finalised.

UI display name

If a client is unable to resolve a Property identifier into a description, then it may just display the identifier as a text string.

• urn:modified-date

If the client can resolve the Property identifier into a description, then the client may use the information in the description to display a human readable name and description of the Property.

• Last modification date of the node data

Property editors

If the client is unable to resolve a Property identifier into a description, or does not understand the type information defined in the description, then the client may treat the Property value as a simple text string.

If the client can resolve the Property identifier into a description, then the client may use the information in the description to display an appropriate editing tool for the Property.

In the current version of the specification the rules for editing Properties are as follows :

• A service may impose validation rules on the values of specific types of Properties
• If a client attempts to set a Property to an invalid value, then the service may reject the change.
• Where possible, the validation rules for a type of Property should be defined in the Property description

Future versions of the VOSpace specification may extend the PropertyDescription to include more specific machine readable validation rules for a Property type.

Note that at the time of writing, the schema for registering validation rules in PropertyDescriptions has not been finalised.

Standard properties

The VOSpace team intend to register Property URIs and PropertyDescriptions for the core set of Properties.

However, this is not intended to be a closed list, different implementations are free to define and use their own Properties.

Views

A View describes the data formats and contents available for importing or exporting data to or from a VOSpace node.

The metadata for each VOSpace Node contains two lists of Views.

• accepts is a list of Views that the service can accept for importing data into the Node
• provides is a list of Views that the service can provide for exporting data from Node

A View has the following members:

• uri : the View identifier
• original : an optional boolean flag to indicate that the View preserves the original bit pattern of the data
• param : a set of name-value pairs that can be used to specify additional arguments for the View .

Example use cases

Simple file store

A simple VOSpace system that stores data as a binary files can just return the contents of the original file. The client supplies a View identifier when it imports the data, and the service uses this information to describe the data to other clients.

A file based system can use the special case View identifier ivo://net.ivoa.vospace/views/any to indicate that it will accept any data format or View for a Node.

For example :

• A client imports a file into the service, specifying a View to decribe the file contents
• The service stores the data as a binary file and keeps a record of the View
• The service can then use the View supplied by the client to describe the data to other clients

This type of service is not required to understand the imported data, or to verify that it contents match the View, it treats all data as binary files.

Database store

A VOSpace system that stores data in database tables would need to be able to understand the data format of an imported file in order to parse the data and store it correctly. This means that the service can only accept a specific set of Views, or data formats, for importing data into the Node.

In order to tell the client what input data formats it can accept, the service publishes a list of specific Views in the accepts list for each Node.

On the output side, a database system would not be able to provide access to the original input file. The contents of file would have been transferred into the database table and then discarded. The system has to generate the output results from the contents of the database table.

In order to support this, the service needs to be able to tell the client what Views of the data are available.

A database system may offer access to the table contents as either VOTable or FITS files, it may also offer zip or tar.gz compressed versions of these. In which case the system needs to be able to express nested file formats such as 'zip containing VOTable' and 'tar.gz containing FITS'.

A service may also offer subsets of the data. For example, a workflow system may only want to look at the table headers to decide what steps are required to process the data. If the table contains a large quantity of data, then downloading the whole contents just to look at the header information is inefficient. To make this easier, a database system may offer a 'metadata only' View of the table, returning a VOTable or FITS file containing just the metadata headers and no rows.

So our example service may want to offer the following Views of a database table :

• Table contents as FITS
• Table contents as VOTable

• Table contents as zip containing FITS
• Table contents as zip containing VOTable

• Table contents as tar.gz containing FITS
• Table contents as tar.gz containing VOTable

• Table metadata as FITS
• Table metadata as VOTable

The service would publish this information as a list of Views in the provides section of the metadata for each Node.

The VOSpace specification does not mandate what Views a service must provide. The VOSpace specification is intended to provide a flexible mechanism enabling services to describe a variety of different Views of data. It is upto the service implementation to decide what Views of the data it can accept and provide.

View identifiers

Every new type of View requires a unique URI to identify the View and its content.

The rules for the View identifiers are similar to the rules for namespace URIs in XML schema. The only restriction is that it must be a vaild (unique) URI.

• An XML schema namespace identifier can be just a simple URN, e.g. urn:my-namespace
• Within the IVOA, the convention for namespace identifiers is to use a HTTP URL pointing to the namespace schema, or a resource describing it

The current VOSpace schema defines View identifiers as anyURI. The only restriction is that it must be a vaild (unique) URI.

• A View URI can be a simple URN, e.g. urn:my-view

This may be sufficient for testing and development on a private system, but it is not scalable for use on a public service.
For a production system, any new Views should have unique URIs that can be resolved into to a description of the View.

Ideally, these should be IVO registry URIs that point to a description registered in the IVO registry.

• e.g. ivo://my-registry/vospace/views/my-view

Using an IVO registry URI to identify Views has two main advantages

• IVO registry URIs are by their nature unique, which makes it easy to ensure that different teams do not accidentally use the same URI.
• If the IVO registry URI points to a description registered in the IVO registry, this provides a mechanism to discover what the View contains.

View descriptions

If the URI for a particular View is resolvable, i.e. an IVO registry identifier or a HTTP URL, then it should point to an XML resource that describes the View.

A ViewDescription should describe the data format and/or content of the view.

A ViewDescription should have the following members:

• uri : the formal URI of the View
• DisplayName : A simple text display name of the View
• Description : Text block describing the data format and content of the View

A ViewDescription may have the following optional members.

• MimeType : the standard MIME type of the View, if applicable.

However, at the time of writing, the schema for registering ViewDescriptions in the IVO registry has not been finalised.

UI display name

If a client is unable to resolve a View identifier into a description, then it may just display the identifier as a text string.

• Download as urn:table.meta.fits

If the client can resolve the View identifier into a description, then the client may use the information in the description to display a human readable name and description of the View.

• Download table metadata as FITS header

MIME types

If a VOSpace service provides HTTP access to the data contained in a Node, then if the ViewDescription contains a MimeType field, this should be included in the appropriate header field of the HTTP response.

Protocols

A Protocol describes the parameters required to perform a data transfer using a particular protocol.

A Protocol has the following members:

• • uri : the Protocol identifier.
  • endpoint : the endpoint URL to use for the data transfer.
  • param : A list of name-value pairs that specify any additional arguments required for the transfer.

Protocol identifiers

Every new type of Protocol requires a unique URI to identify the Protocol and how to use it.

The rules for the Protocol identifiers are similar to the rules for namespace URIs in XML schema. The only restriction is that it must be a vaild (unique) URI.

• An XML schema namespace identifier can be just a simple URN, e.g. urn:my-namespace
• Within the IVOA, the convention for namespace identifiers is to use a HTTP URL pointing to the namespace schema, or a resource describing it

The current VOSpace schema defines Protocol identifiers as anyURI. The only restriction is that it must be a vaild (unique) URI.

• A Protocol URI can be a simple URN, e.g. urn:my-protocol

This may be sufficient for testing and development on a private system, but it is not scalable for use on a public service.
For a production system, any new Protocols should have unique URIs that can be resolved into to a description of the Protocol.

Ideally, these should be IVO registry URIs that point to a description registered in the IVO registry.

• e.g. ivo://my-registry/vospace/protcols/my-protocol

Using an IVO registry URI to identify Protocols has two main advantages

• IVO registry URIs are by their nature unique, which makes it easy to ensure that different teams do not accidentally use the same URI.
• If the IVO registry URI points to a description registered in the IVO registry, this provides a mechanism to discover how to use the Protocol.

Protocol descriptions

If the URI for a particular Protocol is resolvable, i.e. an IVO registry identifier or a HTTP URL, then it should point to an XML resource that describes the Protocol.

A ProtocolDescription should describe the underlying transport protocol, and how it should be used in this context.

A ProtocolDescription should have the following members:

• uri : the formal URI of the Protocol
• DisplayName : A simple text display name of the Protocol
• Description : Text block describing describe the underlying transport protocol, and how it should be used in this context

However, at the time of writing, the schema for registering ProtocolDescriptions in the IVO registry has not been finalised.

UI display name

If a client is unable to resolve a Protocol identifier into a description, then it may just display the identifier as a text string.

• Download using urn:my-protocol

If the client can resolve the Protocol identifier into a description, then the client may use the information in the description to display a human readable name and description of the Protocol.

• Download using standard HTTP GET

Standard protocols

The VOSpace team intend to register Protocol URIs and ProtocolDescriptions for the core set of standard transport protocols.

e.g.

• Standard HTTP get and put
• Standard FTP get and put
• etc

However, this is not intended to be a closed list, different implementations are free to define and use their own transfer Protocols.

Custom protocols

There are several use cases where a specific VOSpace implementation may want to define and use a custom VOSpace transfer Protocol, either extending an existing Protocol, or defining a new one.

SRB use case

One example would be a VOSpace service that was integrated with a SRB system. In order to enable the service to use the native SRB transport protocol to transfer data, the service providers would need to register a new ProtocolDescription to represent the SRB transport protocol.

The ProtocolDescription would refer to the technical specification for the SRB transport protocol, and define how it should be used to transfer data to and from the VOSpace service.

Clients that do not understand the SRB transport protocol would not recongnise the URI for the SRB Protocol, and would ignore Transfer options offered using this Protocol.

Clients that were able to understand the SRB transport protocol would reconginse the URI for the SRB Protocol, and could use the srb:// endpoint address in a Protocol option to transfer data using the SRB transport protocol.

Enabling different gorups to define, register and use their own custom Protocols in this way means that support for new transport protocols can be added to VOSpace systems without requiring changes to the core VOSpace specification.

In this particular example, it is expected that one group within the IVOA will work with the SRB team at SDSC to define and register the Protocol URI and ProtocolDescription for using the SRB protocol to transfer data to and from VOSpace systems.

Other implementations that plan to use the SRB transport protocol in the same way could use the same Protocol URI and ProtocolDescription to describe data transfers using the SRB transport protocol.

The two implementations would then be able use the common Protocol URI to negotiate data transfers using the SRB transport protocol.

Local NFS use case

Another example of a custom Protocol use case would to transfer data using the local NFS filesystem within an institute.

If an institute has one or more VOSpace services co-located with a number of data processing applications, all located within the same local network, then it would be inefficient to use HTTP get and put to transfer the data betweeen the services if they could all access the same local filesystem.

In this case, the local system administrators could register a custom ProtocolDescription which described how to transfer data using their local NFS filesystem.

• ivo:///my.institute/vospace/protocols/internal-nfs

Data transfers using this Protocol would be done using file:// URLs pointing to locations within the local NFS filesystem. e.g.

• file:///net/host/path/file

These URLs would only have meaning to services and applicaitions located within the local network, and would not be useable from outside the network.

Services and applications located within the local network would be configured to recognise the custom Protocol URI, and to use local filesystem operations to move files within the NFS filesystem.

Services and applications located outside local network would not recognise the custom Protocol URI and so would not attempt to use the internal file URLs to transfer data.

Note that in this example the custom Protocol URI and the associated ProtocolDescription refer to data transfers using file URLs within a specific local NFS filesystem.

If a different institute wanted to use a similar system to transfer data within their own local network, then they would have to register their own custom Protocol URI and associated ProtocolDescription.

The two different Protocol URIs and ProtocolDescriptions describe how to use the same underlying transport protocol (NFS) in different contexts.

Enabling different gorups to define, register and use their own custom Protocols in this way means that systems can be configured to use the best available transport protocols for transferring data, without conflicting with other systems who may be using similar a transport protocol in a different context.

Transfers

A Transfer describes the details of a data transfer to or from a space.

A Transfer has the following members:

• view : A View specifying the requested View .
  • For the transfer to be valid, the specified View must match one of those listed in the accepts or provides list of the Node.

• protocol : one or more a Protocols specifying the transfer protocols to use.
  • A Transfer may contain more than one Protocol element with different Protocol URIs.
  • A Transfer may contain more than one Protocol element with the same Protocol URI with different endpoints.

Synchronous transfers

Two of the VOSpace transfer methods are synchronous - the service performs the data transfer during the scope of the SOAP call.

In these methods, the client constructs a Transfer request containing details of the Node and View and one or more Protocol elements with valid endpoint addresses.

The service may ignore Protocols with URIs that it does not recognise.

If the server is unable to handle any of the requested Protocols in a Transfer request, then it responds with a fault.

The order of the Protocols in the request indicates the order of preference that the client would like the server to use However, this is only a suggestion, and the server is free to use its own preferences to select which Protocol it uses first.

The service selects the first Protocol it wants to use from the list and attempts to transfer the data using the Protocol endpoint.

If the first attempt fails, the server may choose another Protocol from the list and re-try the transfer using that Protocol endpoint.

The server may attempt to transfer the data using any or all of the Protocols in the list until either, the data transfer succeds, or there are no more Protocol options left.

The server is only allowed to use each Protocol option once. This allows a data source to issue one time URLs for a Transfer, and cancel each URL once it has been used.

Once one of the Protocol options succeeds the transfer is considered to be completed, and the server is not allowed to use any of the remaining Protocol options. This allows a data source to issue a set of one time URLs for a transfer, and to cancel any unused URLs once the transfer has been completed.

Some Protocols may require the service to call a callback address when a data transfer completes. This behaviour is specific to the Protocol, and should be defined in the ProtocolDescription.

If none of the Protocol options succeed, then the transfer is considered to have failed, and the service returns an exception containing details of the Protocol options it tried.

Asynchronous transfers

Two of the VOSpace transfer methods are asynchronous - an external actor performs the data transfer outside the scope of the SOAP call.

In these methods, the client sends a template Transfer request to the server.

The Transfer request should contain details of the Node and View and one or more Protocol elements without endpoint addresses .

In effect, the client is sending a list of Protocols that it (the client) wants to use for the transfer.

The service may ignore Protocols with URIs that it does not recognise.

The service selects the Protocols from the request that it is capable of handling, and builds a Transfer response containing the selected Protocol elements filling in valid endpoint addresses for each of them.

The order of the Protocol elements in the request indicates the order of preference that the client would like to use. However, this is only a suggestion, and the server is free to use its own preferences when generating the list of Protocols in the response.

In effect, the server is responding with the subset of the requested Protocols that it (the server) is prepared to offer.

If the server is unable to accept any of the requested Protocols, then it responds with a fault.

On receipt of the response, the client can use the list of Protocols itself, or pass them on to another agent to perform the data transfer on its behalf.

The agent may ignore Protocols URIs that it does not recognise.

The agent selects the first Protocol it wants to use from the list and attempts to transfer the data using the Protocol endpoint.

If the first attempt fails, the agent may choose another Protocol from the list and re-try the transfer using that Protocol endpoint.

The agent may attempt to transfer the data using any or all of the Protocols in the list until either, the data transfer succeds, or there are no more Protocol options left.

The agent is only allowed to use each Protocol option once. This allows a data source to issue one time URLs for a Transfer, and cancel each URL once it has been used.

Once one of the Protocol options succeeds the transfer is considered to be completed, an the agent is not allowed to use any of the remaining unused Protocol options. This allows a data source to issue a set of one time URLs for a transfer, and to cancel any unused URLs once the transfer has been completed.

Some Protocols may require the agent to call a callback address when a data transfer completes. This behaviour is specific to the Protocol, and should be defined in the ProtocolDescription.

If none of the Protocol options succeed, then the transfer is considered to have failed.

Access control

The access control policy for a VOSpace is defined by the implementor of that space according to the use cases for which the implementation is intended.

A human-readable description of the implemented access policy must be declared in the registry metadata for the space.

These are the most probable access policies.

• No access control is asserted. Any client can create, read, write and delete nodes anonymously.
• No authorization is required, as in policy #1, but clients must authenticate an identity (for logging purposes) in each request to the space.
• Clients may not create or change nodes (i.e. the contents of the space are fixed by the implementation or set by some interface other than VOSpace), but any client can read any node without authentication.
• Nodes are considered to be owned by the user who created them. Only the owner can operate on a node.

No operations to modify the access policy (e.g. to set permissions on an individual node) are included in this standard. Later versions may add such operations.

Where the access policy requires authentication of callers, the VOSpace service shall support one of the authentication methods defined in the IVOA Single Sign On profile.

Web service operations

A VOSpace-1.0 service shall be a SOAP service with the following operations.

Service metadata

getProtocols

Get a list of the transfer Protocols supported by the space service.

Parameters

• none

Returns

• accepts : A list of Protocols that the service can accept
  • In this context 'accepting a protocol' means that the service can act as a client for the protocol
  • e.g. 'accepting http-get' means the service can read data from an external http web server
• provides : A list of Protocols that the service can provide
  • In this context 'providing a protocol' means that the service can act as a server for the protocol
  • e.g. 'providing http-get' means the service can act as a http web server

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails

getViews

Get a list of the Views and data formats supported by the space service.

Parameters

• none

Returns

• accepts : A list of Views that the service can accept
  • In this context 'accepting a view' means that the service can receive input data in this format
  • A simple file based system may use the reserved View URI ivo://net.ivoa.vospace/views/any to indicate that it can accept data in any format

• provides : A list of Views that the service can provide
  • In this context 'providing a view' means that the service can produce output data in this format
  • A simple file based system may use the reserved View URI ivo://net.ivoa.vospace/views/any to indicate that it can provide data in any format

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails

getProperties

Parameters

• none

Returns

• accepts : A list of identifiers for the Properties that the service accepts and understands.
• provides : A list of identifiers for the Properties that the service provides.
• contains : A list of identifiers for all the Properties currently used by Nodes within the service.

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails

Creating and manipulating data nodes

createNode

Create a new node at a specified location.

Parameters

• node : A template Node for the node to be created

A valid uri attribute is required.

If the reserved URI vos://null is used the service will replace it with a new unique service-generated URI.

If the Node xsi:type is not specified then a generic node of type Node is implied.

The permitted values of xsi:type are:

• vos:Node
• vos:DataNode
• vos:UnstructuredDataNode
• vos:StructuredDataNode

When creating a new Node the service may substitute a valid subtype, i.e. If xsi:type is set to vos:DataNode then this may be implemented as a DataNode, StructuredDataNode or an UnstructuredDataNode.

The properties of the new Node can be set by adding Properties to the template. Attempting to set a Property that the service considers to be 'readonly' will cause a PermissionDenied exception

The accepts and provides lists of Views for the Node cannot be set using this method

Returns

• node : details of the new Node.

The accepts list of Views for the Node will be provided by the service based on service capabililites.

The provides list of Views for the Node may not be filled in until some data has been imported into the Node .

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a DuplicateNode exception if a Node already exists with the same URI
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if the requested URI is invalid
• The service shall throw a TypeNotSupported exception if the type specified in xsi:type is not supported
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation

deleteNode

Delete a node.

Parameters

• target : the URI of an existing Node

Returns

• void

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the target node does not exist.

listNodes

List nodes in the space.

In order to support large numbers of nodes, this method uses a continuation token to enable the list of results to be split across more than response.

Parameters

• token : An optional continuation token from a previous request
  • No token indicates a request for a new list

The server may impose a limited lifetime on the continuation token. If a token has expired, the server will throw an exception, and the client will have to make a new request.

• limit : An optional limit indicating the maximum number of results in the response
  • No limit indicates a request for an unpaged list. However the server may still impose its own limit on the size of an individual response, splitting the results into more than one page if required.

• detail : The level of detail in the returned listing
  • min : The list contains the minimum detail for each Node with all optional parts removed
    • e.g. <node uri="vos://service/name"/>
  • max : The list contains the maximum detail for each Node, including any xsi:type specific extensions
  • properties : The list contains a basic node element with a list of properties for each Node with no xsi:type specific extensions.

• nodes : A list containing zero or more Nodes identifying the target URIs to be listed

Only the uri of the Nodes in the request list are used, the service will ignore any other elements or attributes. This method does not perform a search based on the Node Properties or other attributes.

The Node URIs in the request list may contain a '*' wildcard character in the name part of the URI (the remaining text following the last '/' character).

A single request may include more than one target Node containing a wildcard.
For example, the following request lists all Nodes with names that that match either *.xml or *.txt

    <listNodes>
        <nodes>
            <node uri="vos://service/*.xml"/>
            <node uri="vos://service/*.txt"/>
        </nodes>
    </listNodes>

Note that the wildcard subsitution for the '*' is a simple 'zero or more of any characters' match.

So *.txt will match Nodes with the the following names

• .txt
• frog.txt
• .txtinfo
• frog.txtinfo

This method does not support regular expression matches.

An empty list of target Nodes list implies a full listing of the space.

A request with an empty list of target Nodes :

    <listNodes>
        <nodes/>
    </listNodes>

is equivalent to a request with a single target Node URI of '*' :

    <listNodes>
        <nodes>
            <node uri="vos://service/*"/>
        </nodes>
    </listNodes>

Returns

• token : An optional continuation token, indicating that the list is incomplete
  • The client may use this token to request the next block of Nodes in the sequence.
  • No token implies that the list is complete.

• limit : An optional limit which must be present if a limit parameter was used in the request.
  • If present, the value is the value from the original request and not any limit imposed by the service.

• nodes : A list of the Nodes matching the requested Node URIs

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation

• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if a specific target Node does not exist.
  • This does not apply if the target Node URI contains a wildcard

• The service shall throw an InvalidToken exception if it does not recognize the continuation token.
• The service shall throw an InvalidToken exception if the continuation token has expired.

moveNode

Move a node within a VOSpace service.

Note that this does not cover moving data between two separate VOSpace services.

Moving nodes between separate VOSpace services should be handled by the client, using the import, export and delete methods.

Parameters

• source : The URI of an existing Node

• destination : A template describing the new Node.

If the destination uri is set to the reserved URI vos://null then the service will generate a new unique URI for the Node.

The Properties from the source Node will be combined with the Properties from the destination to create the new Node.

The Node type cannot be changed using this method.
The value of the xsi:type attribute on the destination will be ignored and the new Node will inherit the same type as the original.

The accepts and provides lists of Views for the new Node cannot be set using this method.

Returns

• node : Details of the Node in its new location

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation

• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the source Node does not exist
• The service shall throw a DuplicateNode exception if a Node already exists at the destination
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if a specified URI is invalid
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a specified value is invalid

copyNode

Copy a node within a VOSpace service.

Note that this does not cover copying data between two separate VOSpace services.

Copying nodes between separate VOSpace services should be handled by the client, using the import and export methods.

Parameters

• source : The URI of an existing Node
• destination : A template Node describing the new Node.

If the destination uri is set to the reserved URI vos://null then the service will generate a new unique URI for the Node.

The Properties from the source Node will be combined with the Properties from request to create the new Node.

The Node type cannot be changed using this method.
The value of the xsi:type attribute on the destination will be ignored and the new Node will inherit the same type as the original.

The accepts and provides lists of Views for the new Node cannot be set using this method.

Returns

• node : Details of the new Node

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the source Node does not exist
• The service shall throw a DuplicateNode exception if a Node already exists at the destination
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if a specified URI is invalid
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a specified value is invalid

Manipulating metadata of data sets

getNode

Get the details for a specific Node.

Parameters

• target : The URI of an existing Node

Returns

• node : Details of the Node

The full expanded record for the node is returned, including any xsi:type specific extensions.

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the target Node does not exist

setNode

Set the property values for a specific node.

Parameters

• node : A Node containing a the Node uri and a list of the Properties to set.

This will add or update the node properties including any xsi:type specific elements.

The operation is the union of existing values and new ones.

An empty value sets the value to blank.

To delete a Property, set the xsi:nill attribute to true

This method cannot be used to modify the Node type.

This method cannot be used to modify the accepts or provides list of Views for the Node .

Returns

• node : Details of the Node

The full expanded record for the node is returned, including any xsi:type specific extensions.

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the requests attempts to modify a readonly Property
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the target Node does not exist
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a specified property value is invalid.

Notes

pushDataToVoSpace

Request a list of URLs to send data to a VOSpace node.

This method asks the server for a list of one or more URLs that the client can use to send data to.

The data transfer is initiated by the client, after it has received the response from the VOSpace service.

The primary use case for this method is client that wants to send some data directly to a VOSpace service.

Parameters

• destination : A description of the target Node

A valid uri attribute is required.

If a Node already exists at the target URI, then the data will be imported into the existing Node and the Node properties will be updated with the Properties in the request.

If there is no Node at the destination URI, then the service will create a new Node using the uri, xsi:type and properties supplied in the request (see createNode for details).

• transfer : A template for the data Transfer

The Transfer template contains details of the View and a list of the Protocols that the client wants to use.

The list of Protocols should not contain endpoint addresses, the service will supply the endpoint addresses in the response.

The service will ignore any of the requested protocols that it does not understand or is unable to support.

Returns

• destination : Updated details of the destination Node

• transfer : Updated details of the data Transfer

The service selects which of the requested Protocols it is willing to provide and fills in the operational details for each one.

The service response should not include any Protocols which it is unable to support.

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service will throw a TypeNotSupported exception if it it is unable to create a new Node of the requested type
• The service shall throw a ViewNotSupported exception if a StructuredDataNode is requested with no View
• The service shall throw a ViewNotSupported exception if the service does not support the the requested View
• The service shall throw a ProtocolNotSupported exception if it supports none of the requested Protocols
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if the destination URI is invalid.
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a View parameter is invalid
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a Protocol parameter is invalid

pullDataToVoSpace

Import data into a VOSpace node.

This method asks the server to fetch data from a remote location.

The data transfer is initiated by the VOSpace service and transferred direct into the target Node.

The data source can be another VOSpace service, or a standard HTTP or FTP server.

The primary use case for this method is transferring data from one server or service to another.

Parameters

• destination : A description of the target Node

A valid uri attribute is required.

If a Node already exists at the target URI, then the data will be imported into the existing Node and the Node properties will be updated with the Properties in the request.

If there is no Node at the destination URI, then the service will create a new Node using the uri, xsi:type and properties supplied in the request (see createNode for details).

• transfer : Details of the Transfer

The Transfer details should include the View and a list of one or more Protocols with valid endpoints and params.

Returns

• destination : Updated details of the destination Node

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service will throw a TypeNotSupported exception if it is unable to create a new Node of the requested type
• The service shall throw a ViewNotSupported exception if a StructuredDataNode is requested with no View
• The service shall throw a ViewNotSupported exception if the service does not support the requested View
• The service shall throw a ProtocolNotSupported exception if it supports none of the requested Protocols
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if the destination URI is invalid.
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a View parameter is invalid
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a Protocol parameter is invalid

• The service shall throw a TransferFailed exception if the data transfer does not complete.
• The service shall throw an InvalidData exception if the data does not match the View

Notes

In VOSpace version 1.0, the transfer is synchronous, and the SOAP call does not return until the transfer has been completed.

If the Transfer request contains more than one Protocol option, then the service may failover to use one or more of the options if the first one fails. The service should try each Protocol option in turn until one succeeds or all have been tried.

pullDataFromVoSpace

Request set of URLs that the client can read data from.

The client requests access to the data in a Node, and the server responds with a set of URLs that the client can read the data from.

Parameters

• source : The URI of an existing DataNode
• transfer : A template for the Transfer

The template for the Transfer should contain details of the View and a list of the Protocols that the client would like to use.

The list of Protocols should not contain endpoint addresses, the service will supply the endpoint addresses in the response.

The service will ignore any of the requested protocols that it does not understand or is unable to support.

Returns

• transfer : Updated details of the data Transfer

The service selects which of the requested Protocols it is willing to provide and fills in the operational details for each one.

The service response should not include any Protocols which it is unable to support.

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if the source URI is invalid
• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the source Node does not exist.
• The service shall throw a ProtocolNotSupported exception if it none of the requested Protocols are supported
• The service shall throw a ViewNotSupported exception if it does not support the requested View
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a View parameter is invalid
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if Protocols a parameter is invalid

Notes

The any endpoint URLs supplied in the response should be considered as 'one shot' URLs. A VOSpace service connected to a standard web server may return the public URL for the data. However, a different implementation may create a unique single use URL specifically for this transfer.

pushDataFromVoSpace

Ask the server to send data to a remote location.

The client supplies a list of URLs and asks the server to send the data to the remote location.

The transfer is initiated by the server, and the data is transferred direct from the server to the remote location.

Parameters

• source : The URI of an existing DataNode

• transfer : Details of the Transfer

The Transfer details should include the View and a list of one or more Protocols with valid endpoint and params.

Returns

• void

Faults

• The service shall throw an InternalFault exception if the operation fails
• The service shall throw a PermissionDenied exception if the user does not have permissions to perform the operation
• The service shall throw an InvalidURI exception if the source URI is invalid.
• The service shall throw a NodeNotFound exception if the source Node does not exist.
• The service shall throw a ProtocolNotSupported exception if it supports none of the requested Protocols
• The service shall throw a ViewNotSupported exception if it does not support the requested View
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a Protocol parameter
• The service shall throw an InvalidArgument exception if a Protocols parameter is invalid
• The service shall throw a TransferFailed exception if the data transfer does not complete.

Notes

In VOSpace version 1.0, the transfer is synchronous, and the SOAP call does not return until the transfer has been completed.

If the Transfer request contains more than one Protocol then the service may failover to use one or more of the options if the first one fails. The service should try each Protocol option in turn until one succeeds or all have been tried.

Fault arguments

InternalFault^?

This is thrown with a description of the cause of the fault.

PermissionDenied^?

This is thrown with no arguments.

InvalidURI^?

This is thrown with details of the invalid URI.

NodeNotFound^?

This is thrown with the URI of the missing Node .

DuplicateNode^?

This is thrown with the URI of the duplicate Node .

InvalidToken^?

This is thrown with the invalid token.

InvalidArgument^?

This is thrown with a description of the invalid argument, including the View or Protocol URI and the param name and value.

TypeNotSupported^?

This is thrown with the QName of the unsupported type.

ViewNotSupported^?

This is thrown with the uri of the View .

InvalidData^?

This is thrown with any error message that the data parser produced.

References

[1] T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, U. Irvine, L. Masinter, Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax, http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2396.html

[2] R. Plante, T. Linde, R. Williams, & K. Noddle, IVOA Identifiers, http://www.ivoa.net/Documents/latest/IDs.html

-- DaveMorris - 04 Mar 2007