Integrating Datasets and Services in the Solid Earth Domain: the EPOS
case.
Abstract
A growing number of initiatives in disparate scientific domains arose in
the last decade, with the common goal of clustering data and services
resources across Europe and make them integrated, open, sharable and
available through infrastructures built according to FAIR
principles[1]. In this context, the European Plate Observing System
(EPOS[2]), now in its Implementation Phase and soon getting to the
status of ERIC, is a long-term plan to facilitate integrated use of
data, data products, software, services (DDSS) from distributed research
infrastructures in Europe in the Solid Earth Domain. Its innovation
potential consists in the opportunity of integrating distributed
heterogenous resources from European, National and institutional
resource providers, and making them available in one single environment.
EPOS technical architecture has three main layers: a) National Layer of
data providers, that provide access to DDSS; b) community-specific,
European-Wide Thematic Core Services (TCS) layer, that collect and
integrate DDSS from specific sub-domains and make them available at
European level; c) EPOS Integrated Core Services (ICS) system where the
integration of DDSS occurs. The architecture relies on three main
concepts: Metadata: it is fundamental for describing assets and
resources managed by ICS. A twofold approach was used for metadata: at
metadata management level, the CERIF model was used for storing all
information within the system; at metadata transfer level, an extension
of DCAT-AP[3] was created (EPOS-DCAT-AP[4]) to facilitate TCS
metadata collection. An architectural approach based on microservices
that ensures scalability, flexibility and system interoperability. A
harmonization process, that focused on technical aspects like data
formats and protocols to access DDSS, but also required intra-domain
work on semantic interoperability that includes adoption of common
standards and vocabularies. We will discuss these topics and show a
demonstration of the ICS prototype. [1]
https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples [2]
https://www.epos-ip.org/ [3]
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/solution/dcat-application-profile-data-portals-europe
[4] https://github.com/epos-eu/EPOS-DCAT-AP/