[Handle-info] my two cents on Handle Web services

["adam smith" <ajs17@cornell.edu>]

At Cornell, we have started using Handles, and created some basic Web services for our own use. We've talked with some folks at CNRI about making this code available on the Handle site, with the idea that others might help evolve the approach, but seeing the recent posts on the list, I hesitate to mention it, because what is being proposed seems much more ambitious than what we did. (And I was hoping it would be a excuse to write an article too...) But I'll describe it briefly in case anyone is interested in seeing the code.

We basically had two motivations: make the Handle server more easily accessible from non-Java systems (obviously) and minimize the complex authentication hurdles for requests from our own systems. So, we started with the command line interface example code that comes with the Handle software, refactored it and used Apache Axis to generate the Web services around it (running within Tomcat) and cliet stubs. Basically, the Web services wrap the Handle API calls and hide the public key/private key/ password handling while our own clients at Cornell are authenticated by IP address, which was implemented as a aspect on the Web services that checks a list of valid IP address on the server.

All in all, this was a very minimal approach, and was implemented within a day. But its fully unit tested and it works, providing four CRUD methods so that clients from valid IP addresses only need to pass along a unique identifier and a URL wrapped in a SOAP request to create or update a handle, for example. We have plans to extend it, the most obvious is the idea of having a NOID minter running behind the Web Service further ensuring that the Handles being created are unique within the institution. Then, a valid client would only have to submit a URL for which they would like to create a Handle, it would be created for them, and the value of the generated Handle would be returned in the response.

Also, at the DLF Fall forum, I saw a presentation by Joseph Pawletko from New York University, where, if I remember correctly, he also talked of using the Handle system through a Web services interface (XML-RPC in this case I think). Sounds like we're all trying to solve the same problem.

-- 
adam smith
ajs17@cornell.edu

aim: ajsATcornell
(607) 255-5626

504a olin library
cornell university
ithaca, ny 14853