Use and Functions of GBIF UDDI Registry
Giorgos Ksouris1, Hannu Saarenmaa2, GBIF Secretariat Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen.GBIF UDDI registry is the central global directory where data providers advertise their services so that users, search engines, and portals can discover them. This paper describes GBIF Secretariat’s implementation of the UDDI Registry. UDDI fundamentals, including its core data types are presented and its use and functions in the GBIF metadata infrastructure discussed. The features of UDDI are compared to other solutions and details of how the registry has been deployed in order to meet the needs of GBIF goals are described. In particular, use of taxonomies to group data providers by country and thematic network is important from the standpoint of GBIF participants and the networks GBIF works with. The paper concludes with an analysis of new features that can solve some limitations in the currently used UDDI version, how UDDI can help to achieve a distributed architecture for GBIF, and contributes to the discussion on using UDDI for a unified biodiversity information framework.