Handle System Overview February 2011 Larry Lannom Corporation for National Research Initiatives

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Why Worry About Identifiers? Managing increasing amounts of primary and secondary data on the Net over long periods of time Managing increasingly complex data relationships on the Net over long periods of time When that data, its location(s), responsible parties, and the underlying systems may change dramatically over time Science builds on past work and increasingly relies on collaboration within virtual distributed communities All of this absolutely requires reliable, long-term persistent references to bind together the distributed data, processes, and parties involved

Role of Identifier Resolution Systems in Information Management on Networks Client Resource Discovery Search Engines, Metadata Databases, Catalogues, Guides, etc. ……. ……. ……. John Jane Reminder Don't forget me! Repositories / Collections Identifier Resolution System

Handle System Provides basic identifier resolution system for Internet Go from object name to current state data Name can persist over changes in location and other attributes Logically a single system, but physically and organizationally distributed and highly scalable Enables association of one or more typed values, e.g., IP address, public key, URL, with each id Optimized for speed and reliability Secure resolution with its own PKI as an option Open, well-defined protocol and data model Provides infrastructure for application domains, e.g., digital libraries & publishing, e-research, id mgmt.

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle System Usage Library of Congress DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center) IDF (International DOI Foundation) –CrossRef (scholarly journal consortium, representing >2K publishers & societies) –DataCite (consortium of 9 members from 12 countries started by TIB) –EIDR (Entertainment Identifier Registry) –mEDRA (Multilingual European DOI Registration Agency) –R.R. Bowker (bibliographic data - ISBN) –Office of Publications of the European Community (OPOCE) –Wanfang Data OECD National Agricultural Library/USDA DSpace (MIT + HP) ADL (DoD Advanced Distributed Learning initiative) Australian National Data Service (ANDS) EPIC (European Persistent Identifier Consortium) GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovations)

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Assigned Prefixes – DOI – 211, 323 – Other – 1,569 Handles – DOI – 49.8 M – Other - Additional millions (total per prefix known only to prefix manager) Handle Services – Global Six service sites (three CNRI, one CrossRef, one CNNIC, one GWDG) – Locals >1000 registered LHS’s Traffic – Global: 100 million per month – CNRI-run proxy servers: tens of millions per month Handle System Usage (Jan 2011)

Corporation for National Research Initiatives HANDLE.NET Version 7.0 Major upgrade; released December 2010 Berkeley DB is default storage system Important new features: A single template handle in the form of a base formula will allow any number of extensions to that base to be resolved according to a pattern, without registering each as a handle. Handle values can be signed with "offline" private keys. A new handle value type, 10320/loc, specifies a list of URL locations (including information that differentiates the locations) to which a handle can resolve. A DNS interface means handle servers can be used to host DNS names.

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Server (v7.0) – Java and higher Client Library – Java & C versions available Proxy servlet – Java servlet, typically runs under Apache Tomcat – Build your own or use hdl.handle.net Misc. CNRI software (admin tools, browser plug-ins, etc.) Misc. community software (alternate clients, database modules, etc.) All available at Alternate complete implementations – Two known to CNRI, neither public – Both developed from spec, but they talked to us Handle System Software

Handle String / Examples /bio /5030 Character Set: Unicode 2.0 Encoding: UTF-8 Prefixes Currently allocating only numeric Any text possible

Handles Resolve to Typed Data HandleData TypeHandle Data /456URLhttp://acme.com/... URLhttp://a-books.com/... HS_ADMINuser123 XYZ

Corporation for National Research Initiatives /bio http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/ /bio URL HS_ADMINhandle=0.na/ ; index=200; [delete hdl,add val,read val,modify val,del admin,add admin,list] 10320/loc <location id="1" cr_type="MR-LIST" href=" iPage?doi= %2Fbio " weight="1" /> <location id="2" cr_src="unca" label="SECONDARY_BIOONE" cr_type="MR-LIST" href=" bio " weight="0" /> Handles Resolve to Typed Data HandleData TypeHandle Data

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Resolution The Handle System is a collection of handle services, GHR LHS each of which consists of one or more replicated sites, Site 1Site 2 Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 …... Site n each of which may have one or more servers /abcURL URL #1#2#n#4#3 #1#2...

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Global Handle Registry Client gets request to resolve hdl:123/ Client sends request to Global to resolve 0.NA/123 (prefix handle for 123/456) hdl:123/456

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Global Handle Registry Client gets request to resolve hdl:123/ Global Responds with Service Information for 123 Service Information Acme Local Handle Service IP xc.. xc.. xc..... xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx hdl:123/456

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Primary Site Port # Secondary Site B Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server 1 Server Public Key K03RLQ &M#FG... F^*JLS... 3E$T%... A2S4D... N0L8H IP Address Secondary Site A xcccxv xc.. xc.. xc..... xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx Service Information - Acme Local Handle Service

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Primary Site Port # Secondary Site B Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server 1 Server Public Key K03RLQ &M#FG... F^*JLS... 3E$T%... A2S4D... N0L8H IP Address Secondary Site A xcccxv xc.. xc.. xc..... xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx Service Information - Acme Local Handle Service

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Primary Site Port # Secondary Site B Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server 1 Server Public Key K03RLQ &M#FG... F^*JLS... 3E$T%... A2S4D... N0L8H IP Address Secondary Site A xcccxv xc.. xc.. xc..... xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx xcccxv xccx Service Information - Acme Local Handle Service

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Client gets request to resolve hdl:123/456 hdl:123/ Client queries Server 3 in Secondary Site A for /1 #1 #2 #3 Secondary Site A Secondary Site B Acme Local Handle Service Global Handle Registry #1#2 Primary Site

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Client gets request to resolve hdl:123/456 hdl:123/456 #1 #2 #3 Secondary Site A Secondary Site B Acme Local Handle Service Global Handle Registry #1#2 Primary Site 4. Server responds with handle data

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Handle System Proxy/Web Server HTTP Get Handle Resolution Resolution With a Web Browser

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Resolution With a Web Browser Handle System Proxy/Web Server HTTP Redirect Handle Data

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Handle System Resolution with a Handle Client Plug-in hdl:123/456 Handle Resolution Handle Data

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Handle System Handle Admin via Web Form Web Server and/or Admin Servlets

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Handle System Handle Admin via Web Form Web Server and/or Admin Servlets

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Handle System Custom Admin Client

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Handle Clients Handle System Handle Administration Embedded in Another Process Handle Resolution Embedded in Another Process

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Template Handles An unlimited number of handles are computed on the fly from a single registered template Re-write rules and delimiter can be defined at the prefix level, e.g., use ‘-’ as delimiter and re-write any URL values, e.g., for any handle under the prefix 123 Any handle under that prefix can be divided into base and extension, e.g., 123/456-abc has a base of 123/456 and and extension of abc. The base is registered. The data at 123/456 will then be combined with the extension string (abc) using the re-write rule Resolve “123/456-abc” and get back Resolve “123/456-def” and get back

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Template Handles Directly results from modularity of the current implementation Backend handle storage is pluggable A new storage module allows handles to be computed The rest of the handle resolution mechanisms are unchanged, only the storage module was enhanced Any exception handles can be individually registered to over-ride the template Re-write rules at the base level will over-ride the prefix level rules Re-write rules use Java regular expression language Templates allow handle strings to remain static in reference form while millions of resolution values can be changed at a single stroke

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Offline Signatures Handle values can be signed with "offline" private keys that need not exist on any Internet-connected machine. This additional layer of verification has been applied to all entries in the Global Handle Registry. Any party that has the authority to create handle records can use this capability to sign their handle records. There is a simple (but flexible) API for building handle value digests and signing those digests.

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Multiple Resolution Structured alternatives, e.g., multiple locations, in a single handle value Include selection criteria in that same value Handle client application, e.g., proxy server, performs evaluation Type = 10320/loc; value = – If the user is in the UK they are redirected to if not then either or at random, 50/50 Currently deployed in CNRI-run proxies and also available in the open source proxy code Approach extensible for future selection methods, e.g., chooseby language or other value known to the proxy

Corporation for National Research Initiatives The evaluation falls through the first two criteria and the proxy uses 'weighted' as the selection criteria. The first location ( wins with a weight of 1. That location goes to a script on the CrossRef site that builds the page a user sees when resolving the DOI name as The page is built to include the original URL value plus the 10320/loc data plus some additional information held by CrossRef /bio http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/ /bio URL HS_ADMINhandle=0.na/ ; index=200; [delete hdl,add val,read val,modify val,del admin,add admin,list] Multiple Resolution "Chooseby" 10320/loc <location id="1" cr_type="MR-LIST" href=" iPage?doi= %2Fbio " weight="1" /> <location id="2" cr_src="unca" label="SECONDARY_BIOONE" cr_type="MR-LIST" href=" bio " weight="0" />

Corporation for National Research Initiatives The page displayed includes both the original URL and the added BioOne link: Multiple Resolution "Chooseby"

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Resolving to Metadata: Special Cases Use the multiple resolution option (handle value type 10320/loc) to redirect to metadata services Allow it to be defined at the prefix level, with individual handle override Trigger by content negotiation in http request (linked data) Trigger by URL parameters Being tested with DOIs Test version of dx.doi.org proxy up and running since mid- October All non-standard content negotiation requests would go to RA based services, e.g., metadata.crossref.org Requested specific metadata through URL parameters, redirected to some service, e.g., EIDR registry

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Using a Resolution System With Existing Identifiers No lack of identifiers in the world Actionable ISBN scheme – Example: /99990 – The syntax specification, reading from left to right, is: Handle System DOI name prefix = "10.” ISBN (GS1) Bookland prefix = "978." or "979.” ISBN Publisher prefix = variable length numeric string of 2 to 8 digits Prefix/suffix divider = "/” ISBN Title enumerator and checkdigit = variable length numeric string of 8 to 2 digits

Corporation for National Research Initiatives Specification – RFC 3650: Overview – RFC 3651: Namespace and Service Definition – RFC 3652: Protocol DoDI ISO standards track for DOI U.S. Patent 6,135,646 – Intent was to protect the technology as usage grew – Never used by CNRI, but has been referenced by others as prior art – It has served its purpose well and it expires in 2013 HSAC - Handle System Advisory Committee – Approx 15 members representing big users – Maturation has diminished need for advice – Time for the next stage Handle System Management & Standards