Abstract

The Virtual ITM Observatory (VITMO) is a system that integrates data resources and other virtual observatories together to give the appearance of a seamless system. The level of integration varies depending on the capability of the individual data provider. Some sources are simply viewed as file ... Show moreThe Virtual ITM Observatory (VITMO) is a system that integrates data resources and other virtual observatories together to give the appearance of a seamless system. The level of integration varies depending on the capability of the individual data provider. Some sources are simply viewed as file systems from which the VITMO selects data. Others provide a wealth of individual services that must be selectively integrated. The highest level of integration occurs with peer systems that support ontologies or other knowledge-based representations of data resources. These systems allow VITMO to move the search from a low-level one where VITMO must maintain knowledge about all of the products, to a high level one where VITMO makes high-level requests of the other system and receives the desired responses without knowledge of low-level details. This latter approach is the one that VITMO is using in its integration with the Virtual Solar-Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO), an ontology based system. In this talk we will compare and contrast the experiences of integrating with a system providing a large variety of individual services and one that provides a seamless system-level mapping using ontologies. Show less