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Revision 5190

Added by Matt Jones almost 15 years ago

Updated index page to hide obsolete documentation and provide a simpler
description of Metacati, as well as links to where Metacat is in use.

View differences:

index.html
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<table class="tabledefault" width="100%">
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<tr>
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  <td rowspan="2"><img src="./images/KNBLogo.gif"></td>
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  <td colspan="7"><div class="title">Metacat: the flexible XML database</div></td>
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  <td colspan="7"><div class="title">Metacat: data and metadata catalog</div></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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  <td><a href="/" class="toollink"> KNB Home </a></td>
......
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
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<table class="tabledefault" width="100%">
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<tr>
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  <td class="tablehead" colspan="2"><p class="label">Metacat: the flexible
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      XML Database</p></td>
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  <td class="tablehead" colspan="2"><p class="label">Metacat: a flexible
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      metadata catalog and data repository</p></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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  <td>
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  <p><a href="/software/download.html">Download Metacat</a></p>
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  <h3>Installation Instructions</h3>
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  <h3>Documentation and Installation Instructions</h3>
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  <ul>
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    <li><a href="./metacat-linux-install.html">Linux Installation Instructions</a></li>
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    <li><a href="./metacat-windows-install.html">Windows Installation Instructions</a></li>
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    <li><a
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    href="/software/dist/MetacatAdministratorGuide.pdf">Metacat
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    Administrator's Guide</a></li>
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  </ul>
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  <p>Metacat is a flexible metadata database. It utilizes
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  <img src="images/metacat-logo.png" alt="Metacat" style="float: right;
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  height: 100px"/>
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  <p>Metacat is a flexible, open source metadata catalog and data repository
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  that targets scientific data, particularly from from ecology and environmental
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  science.  Metacat accepts
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     <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml" target="offline">XML</a> as a
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     common syntax for representing the large number of metadata content
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     standards that are relevant to ecology.  Thus, Metacat is a generic XML
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     database that allows storage, query, and retrieval of arbitrary XML
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     documents without prior knowledge of the XML schema.
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     standards that are relevant to ecology and other sciences.  Thus, Metacat
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     is a generic XML database that allows storage, query, and retrieval of
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     arbitrary XML documents without prior knowledge of the XML schema.
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  </p>
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  <p>
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     The Metacat database models XML documents as a DOM tree, basically
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     decomposing the nodes of the XML document and storing the node data
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     as a series of records in a relational database via a JDBC connection.
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     At this point, only Oracle and PostgreSQL have been tested as a backend databases, but
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     we have avoided RDBMS specific features in order to maintain portability
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     to other relational databases.
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  </p>
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  <p>
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     Metacat is implemented as a Java Servlet, and so communicates using basic
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     HTTP protocol semantics.  The figure below shows the basic structure of
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     the Metacat architecture. A well defined interface for inserting,
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     updating, deleting, querying, and transforming (using XSL) XML documents
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     is presented.  We would like to add the DOM API as an alternative
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     supported mechanism for interacting with Metacat, but have not yet
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     implemented this functionality.
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  </p>
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  <p><img src="./metacat.gif" /></p>
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    Metacat is being used extensively <a href="/community.jsp">throughout the
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    world</a> to manage environmental data. It is a key infrastructure
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    component for the <a href="http://data.nceas.ucsb.edu">NCEAS data catalog</a>, the <a href="http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/">Knowledge Network
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    for Biocomplexity (KNB)</a> data catalog, and for the <a href="http://dataone.org">DataONE</a> system, <a href="/community.jsp">among others</a>.</p>
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  </td>
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</tr>
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<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
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<tr>


  		




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  <td>The pages below provide more detailed descriptions of the 


  		




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      various components of the Metacat Servlet. Take the Metacat Tour for 


  		




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      a detailed look at the algorithms and implementation of Metacat.


  		




  
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</table>


  		




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    <ul>


  		




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      <li> <a href="./metacattour.html">A Tour of Metacat</a></li>


  		




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      <li> <a href="./dev/api/index.html" target="offline">Javadoc API 


  		




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           Documentation</a></li>


  		




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      <li> <a href="./troubleshooting.html">Metacat Troubleshooting Guide</a></li>


  		




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    </ul>


  		




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  </td>


  		




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</tr>


  		




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<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>


  		




  
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<iframe width="500" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"


  		




  
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marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"


  		




  
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src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=111257081347673397900.00000111e7923f163c54e&amp;ll=10.487812,-8.4375&amp;spn=152.923473,351.5625&amp;z=1&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br


  		




  
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/><small>View <a


  		




  
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href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=111257081347673397900.00000111e7923f163c54e&amp;ll=10.487812,-8.4375&amp;spn=152.923473,351.5625&amp;z=1&amp;source=embed"


  		




  
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style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Metacat deployments</a> in a larger


  		




  
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map</small>


  		




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</table>


  		




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<p class="contact">


  		




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Web Contact: <a href="mailto:jones@nceas.ucsb.edu">jones@nceas.ucsb.edu</A>


  		




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</p>


  		












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