DataONE Member Node Support =========================== DataONE_ is a federation of data repositories that aims to improve interoperability among data repository software systems and advance the preservation of scientific data for future use. Metacat deployments can be configured to participate in DataONE_. This chapter describes the DataONE_ data federation, its architecture, and the way in which Metacat can be used to participate as a node in the DataONE system. .. _DataONE: http://dataone.org/ What is DataONE? ---------------- The DataONE_ project is a collaboration among scientists, technologists, librarians, and social scientists to build a robust, interoperable, and sustainable system for preserving and accessing Earth observational data at national and global scales. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, DataONE partners focus on technological, financial, and organizational sustainability approaches to building a distributed network of data repositories that are fully interoperable, even when those repositories use divergent underlying software and support different data and metadata content standards. DataONE defines a common web-service service programming interface that allows the main software components of the DataONE system to seamlessly communicate. The components of the DataONE system include: * DataONE Service Interface * Member Nodes * Coordinating Nodes * Investigator Toolkit Metacat implements the services needed to operate as a DataONE Member Node, as described below. The service interface then allows many different scientific software tools for data management, analysis, visualization and other parts of the scientific lifecycle to directly communicate with Metacat without being further specialized beyond the support needed for DataONE. This streamlines the process of writing scientific software both for servers and client tools. The DataONE Service Interface ----------------------------- DataONE acheives interoperability by defining a lightweight but powerful set of REST_ web services that can be implemented by various data management software systems to allow those systems to effectively communicate with one another, exchange data, metadata, and other scientific objects. This `DataONE Service Interface`_ is an open standard that defines the communication protocols and technical expectations for software components that wish to participate in the DataONE federation. This service interface is divided into `four distinct tiers`_, with the intention that any given software system may implement only those tiers that are relevant to their repository; for example, a data aggregator might only implement the Tier 1 interfaces that provide anonymous access to public data sets, while a complete data management system like Metacat can implement all four tiers: 1. **Tier 1:** Read-only, anonymous data access 2. **Tier 2:** Read-only, with authentication and access control 3. **Tier 3:** Full Write access 4. **Tier 4:** Replication target services .. _REST: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer .. _DataONE Service Interface: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0 .. _four distinct tiers: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/index.html Member Nodes ------------ In DataONE, Member Nodes represent the core of the network, in that they represent particular scientific communities, manage and preserve their data and metadata, and provide tools to their community for contributing, managing, and accessing data. DataONE provides a standard way for these individual repositories to interact, and helps to coordinate among the Member Nodes in the federation. This allows Member Nodes to provide services to each other, such as replication of data for backup and failover. To be a Member Node, a repository must implement the Member Node service interface, and then register with DataONE. Metacat provides this implementation automatically, and provides an easy configuration option to register a Metacat instance as a DataONE Member Node (see configuration section below). If you are deploying a Metacat instance, it is relatively simple to become a Member Node, but keep in mind that DataONE is aiming for longevity and preservation, and so is selecting for nodes that have long-term data preservation as part of their mission. Coordinating Nodes ------------------ The DataONE Coordinating Nodes provide a set of services to Member Nodes that allow Member Nodes to easily interact with one another and to provide a unified view of the whole DataONE Federation. The main services provided by Coordinating Nodes are: * Global search index for all metadata and web portal for data discovery * Resolution service to map unique identifiers to the Member Nodes that hold data * Authentication against a shared set of accounts based on CILogon_ and InCommon_ * Replication management services to reliably replicate data according to policies set by the Member Nodes * Fixity checking to ensure that preserved objects remain valid * Member Node registration and management * Aggregated logging for data access across the whole federation Three geographically distributed Coordinating Nodes replicate these coordinating services at UC Santa Barbara, the University of New Mexico, and the Oak Ridge Campus. Coordinating Nodes are set up in a fully redundant manner, such that any of the coordinating nodes can be offline and the others will continue to provide availability of the services without interruption. The DataONE services expose their services at:: https://cn.dataone.org/cn And the DataONE search portal is available at: https://cn.dataone.org/ .. _CILogon: http://www.cilogon.org .. _InCommon: http://incommon.org Investigator Toolkit -------------------- In order to provide scientists with convenient access to the data and metadata in DataONE, the third component represents a library of software tools that have been adapted to work with DataONE via the service interface and can be used to discover, manage, analyze, and visualize data in DataONE. For example, DataONE plans to release metadata editors (e.g., Morpho), data search tools (e.g., Mercury), data access tools (e.g., ONEDrive), and data analysis tools (e.g., R) that all know how to interact with DataONE Member Nodes and Coordinating Nodes. Consequently, scientists will be able to access data from any DataONE Member Node, such as a Metacat node, directly from within the R environment. In addition, software tools that are written to work with one Member Node should also work with others, thereby greatly increasing the efficiency of creating an entire toolkit of software that is useful to investigators. Because DataONE services are REST web services, software written in any programming language can be adapted to interact with DataONE. In addition, to ease the process of adapting tools to work with DataONE, libraries are provided for common programming languages such as Java (d1-libclient-java) and Python (d1_libclient-python) are provided that allow simple function calls to be used to access any DataONE service. Configuring Metacat as a Member Node ------------------------------------ Configuring Metacat as a DataONE Member Node is accomplished with the standard Metacat Administrative configuration utility. To access the utility, visit the following URL:: http:////admin where ```` represents the hostname of your webserver running metacat, and ```` is the name of the web context in which Metacat was installed. Once at the administrative utility, click on the DataONE configuration link, which should show the following screen: .. figure:: images/screenshots/screen-dataone-config.png :align: center The configuration screen for configuring Metacat as a DataONE node. To configure Metacat as a node in the DataONE network, configure the properties shown in the figure above. The Node Name should be a short name for the node that can be used in user interface displays that list the node. For example, one node in DataONE is the 'Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity'. Also provide a brief sentence or two describing the node, including its intended scope and purpose. The Node Identifier field is a unique identifer assigned by DataONE to identify this node even when the node changes physical locations over time. When Metacat registers with the DataONE Coordinating Nodes (when you click 'Register' at the bottom of this form), the Node Identifier is automatically set. **It is critical that you not change the Node Identifier**, as that will break the connection with the DataONE network. The ability to edit this field is only provided for the rare case in which a new Metacat instance is being established to act as the provider for an existing DataONE Member Node, in which case the field can be edited to set it to the value of a valid, existing Node Identifier. The Node Subject and Node Certificate Path are linked fields that are critical for proper operation of the node. To act as a Member Node in DataONE, you must obtain an X.509 certificate that can be used to identify this node and allow it to securely communicate using SSL with other nodes and client applications. This certificate can either be obtained from the DataONE Certificate Authority, or from a commercial provider of certificates. Once you have the certificate in hand, use a tool such as ``openssl`` to determine the exact subject distinguished name in the certificate, and use that to set the Node Subject field. Set the Node Certificate Path to the location on the system in which you stored the certificate file. The ``Synchronize`` checkbox allows the administrator to decide whether to turn on synchronization with the DataONE network. When this box is unchecked, the DataONE Coordinating Nodes will not attempt to synchronize at all, but when checked, then DataONE will periodically contact the node to synchrnize all metadata content. To be part of the DataONE network, this box must be checked as that allows DataONE to receive a copy of the metadata associated with each object in the Metacat system. The switch is provided for those rare cases when a node needs to be disconnected from DataONE for maintenance or service outages. When the box is checked, DataONE contacts the node using the schedule provided in the ``Synchronization Schedule`` fields. The example in the dialog above has synchronization occurring once every third minutes at the 10 second mark of those minutes. The syntax for these schedules follows the Quartz Crontab Entry syntax, which provides for many flexible schedule configurations. If the administrator desires a less frequent schedule, such as daily, that can be configured by changing the ``*`` in the ``Hours`` field to be a concrete hour (such as ``11``) and the ``Minutes`` field to a concrete value like``15``, which would change the schedule to synchronize at 11:15 am daily. Once these parameters have been properly set, us the ``Register`` button to request to register with the DataONE Coordinating Node. This will generate a registration document describing this Metacat instance and send it to the Coordinating Node registration service, which will return a unique Node Identifier which will be recorded by Metacat. At that point, all that remains is to wait for the DataONE administrators to approve the node registration. Details of the approval process can be found on the `DataONE web site`_. .. _DataONE web site: http://www.dataone.org Access Control Policies ----------------------- Metacat has supported fine grained access control for objects in the system since its inception. DataONE has devised a simple but effective access control system that is compatible with the prior system in Metacat. For each object in the DataONE system (including data objects, scientific metadata objects, and resource maps), a SystemMetadata_ document describes the critical metadata needed to manage that object in the system. This metadata includes a ``RightsHolder`` field and an ``AuthoritativeMemberNode`` field that are used to list the people and node that have ultimate control over the disposition of the object. In addition, a separate AccessPolicy_ can be included in the ``SystemMetadata`` for the object. This ``AccessPolicy`` consists of a set of rules that grant additional permissions to other people, groups, and systems in DataONE. For example, for one data file, two users (Alice and Bob) may be able make changes to the object, and the general public may be allowed to read the object. In the absence of explicit rules extending these permissions, Metacat enforces the rule that only the ``RightsHolder`` and ``AuthoritativeMemberNode`` have rights to the object, and that the Coordinating Node can manage ``SystemMetadata`` for the object. An example AccessPolicy that might be submitted with a dataset (giving Alice and Bob permission to read and write the object) follows: :: ... /C=US/O=SomeIdP/CN=Alice /C=US/O=SomeIdP/CN=Bob read write ... These AccessPolicies can be embedded inside of the ``SystemMetadata`` that accompany submission of an object through the `MNStorage.create`_ and `MNStorage.update`_ services, or can be set using the `CNAuthorization.setAccessPolicy`_ service. .. _SystemMetadata: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/Types.html#Types.AccessPolicy .. _AccessPolicy: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/Types.html#Types.AccessPolicy .. _MNStorage.create: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/MN_APIs.html#MNStorage.create .. _MNStorage.update: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/MN_APIs.html#MNStorage.update .. _CNAuthorization.setAccessPolicy: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/CN_APIs.html#CNAuthorization.setAccessPolicy Configuration as a replication target ------------------------------------- DataONE is designed to enable a robust preservation environment through replication of digital objects at multiple Member Nodes. Any Member Node in DataONE that implements the Tier 4 Service interface can offer to act as a target for object replication. Currently, Metacat configuration supports turning this replication function on or off. When the 'Act as a replication target' checkbox is checked, then Metacat will notify the Coordinating Nodes in DataONE that it is available to house replicas of objects from other nodes. Shortly thereafter, the Coordinating Nodes may notify Metacat to replicate objects from throughout the system, which it will start to do. There objects will begin to be listed in the Metacat catalog. .. Note:: Future versions of Metacat will allow finer specification of the Node Replication Policy, which determines the set of objects that it is willing to replicate, using constraints on object size, total objects, source nodes, and object format types. Object Replication Policies --------------------------- In addition to access control, each object also can have a ``ReplicationPolicy`` associated with it that determines whether DataONE should attempt to replicate the object for failover and backup purposes to other Member Nodes in the federation. Both the ``RightsHolder`` and ``AuthoritativeMemberNode`` for an object can set the ``ReplicationPolicy``, which consists of fields that describe how many replicas should be maintained, and any nodes that are preferred for housing those replicas, or that should be blocked from housing replicas. These ReplicationPolicies can be embedded inside of the ``SystemMetadata`` that accompany submission of an object through the `MNStorage.create`_ and `MNStorage.update`_ services, or can be set using the `CNReplication.setReplicationPolicy`_ service. .. _CNReplication.setReplicationPolicy: http://releases.dataone.org/online/d1-architecture-1.0.0/apis/CN_APIs.html#CNReplication.setReplicationPolicy