Subject: A potential ADASS abstract - please comment

From: Bob Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 94 17:07:44 EDT

\title{ Distributed Astronomical Data Archives - DADA }
\author{ Robert E. Jackson }
\affil{ Computer Sciences Corporation, Space Telescope Science Institute }
\begin{abstract}
ADS, ESIS, etc., use a centralized database for querying multiple datasets.
Individual dataset catalogs are converted to a standard representation and
added to the centralized database.
This centralized database is a single point of failure and CPU cycle contention.

A Distributed Astronomical Data Archive (DADA) would use
the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to allow both the datasets and
the dataset catalogs to remain at the sites originating the
data.  
A standard query protocol mimicing HTML forms would allow 
querying of multiple sites and uniform presentation of the
results.
Public domain software could be used and would allow each observatory
to make their datasets available with complete local control over
the access and indexing.

DADA has the potential for making astronomical datasets available, 
discoverable, and as easy to serve as by WWW or WAIS.