REAP Cataloging and Searching

Summary

The Kepler client has the ability to access data using DAP servers but has no way to find those servers. Data search systems built for DAP servers don't have a very good track record often because such systems do not address the twin needs of working with a fluid (rapidly changing) pool of data servers and data sets and fitting in with the basic requirement of DAP-based systems - that impact on a data provider be absolutely minimal.

In order for impact to be minimal, the typical data documentation (i.e. metadata) required for most searching systems is not required for data served using DAP. As a result, interfacing DAP servers to such systems is a daunting task involving lots of metadata entry. This effort is frustrated not obly be the often baroque nature of metadata standards (e.g., FGDC) but because the data sources being described move from place to place more frequently and that is something the begs for automated discovery and cataloging - exactly the opposite what is provided by hand-written metadata records.