FOCUS A Scalable and Extensible Digital Format Registry

FOCUS – A Scalable and Extensible Digital Format Registry Principal Investigator: Joseph Ja. Ja Graduate Students: Sang Song and Muluwork Geremew Lead Programmers: Mike Smorul and Mike Mc. Gann Institute for Advanced Computer Studies University of Maryland, College Park

Format Obsolescence n n n Handling of digital formats is an essential part of long-term preservation Preservation of any object must include ways to render and transform the object if necessary. Needs to preserve • • Different essential aspects of objects. Tools for capturing the essential format characteristics of information stored as digital objects.

FOCUS: FOrmat CUration Service n n Maintains persistent information on digital formats and applications to access and manipulate them. Accessible either • • Directly through LDAP Or indirectly through SOAP (Web Services) SOAP Web Service Agent Format Registry LDAP

FOCUS on LDAP/SOAP n n Interoperability • Scalability • • • n LDAP and SOAP provide the standard models and protocols, being platform independent. LDAP is a proven scalable technology. LDAP schema can be extended and server can be replicated with ease. SOAP server side can be extended without affecting client sides. Security • • SOAP can be on top of SSL (https). LDAP also provides its own secure authentication and authorization methods.

FOCUS Data Model q. General descriptive properties. q. Processing : format taken as input and/or output. dc=umiacs, dc=umd, dc=edu ou=Format-Registry ou=Applications q. General descriptive properties. q. Processing: rendering, editing, conversion and validation services/systems. ou=Formats Adobe Acrobat v 6. 0 Adobe PDF v 1. 4 Adobe Photoshop v 7. 0 Compu. Serv GIF 1989 a Jhove 1. 0 JPEG Image Format 2000

FOCUS Service Model Web Service Agent Identificatio n Service Format Registry Locates transformation services to convert DO from source format to format of interest. Conversio n Service Identifies format of a specific Validation DO using the internal signature Service Determines a verification service to verify the format of a specific DO Identifies current rendering conditions Rendering for specific digital format. Service