Task V.2

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Subtask B:    Common Structure for Archiving, Processing, and Accessing Resource

The on-line questionnaire, hosted by a server at JRC, was open to the public until early 2007. Several servers of relevance, e.g., NASA, Satel-Light, SoDa, and PV-GIS, announced the questionnaire to create awareness and increase the number of responses. Results will be published in several forms. One will be a document on the various web sites that announced the questionnaire providing feedback to those who filled it out. Another form will be an article in Solar Energy. Since solar projects are often requested to perform an analysis of user/client needs, this publication is expected to establish a baseline that could be used by many projects to avoid duplicating efforts.

Metadata procedures recommended by the WMO are being evaluated. A first implementation of metadata was performed in an SQL ground measurement database.

The Open Source Jonas program was implemented and tested. This middleware may be the candidate for the final prototype ensuring communication among web services.

One problem identified in the SoDa Service and in web services in general, is the inability of web services to handle situations in which one service in a chain, or plan, of services, is removed. Using a manually defined plan, we designed a prototype based on SoDa that is able to select an equivalent service to meet the request. This prototype is fully operable, but it has not been decided whether to make it the new version of the SoDa Service.

An article by ‘Gschwind B., Ménard L., Albuisson M., Wald L., Converting a successful research project into a sustainable service: the case of the SoDa Web service. Journal of Environmental Modeling and Software, 21, 1555-1561, 2006, doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.05.002.’ was published. Of particular interest are the lessons learned from clients for re-engineering such a service. They will be applied to Subtask B.

A web service permitting companies to create ASCII files that can be entered into GIS mapping software was developed. This service exploits the HelioClim-1 database. Clients produced maps for the Balkans, Gambia, Mali and Sicily. There is an ongoing JRC effort for automated exploitation of the HelioClim-2 database to feed the PV-GIS tools.

A web service was developed to automatically connect to NCAR/NCEP forecasts. The next step will be to include this service in SoDa. This may serve as a baseline to test performance of forecast models.

Work Planned for 2007

  • NASA-SSE release 6.0, providing the latest datasets and large sets of parameters to the solar energy industry, is scheduled for 2007. It will provide an interactive prototype to access dataset parameters over the Internet.

  • Provide a link to the IEA Task and to the user survey on the next NASA-SSE release

  • Proceed with writing documentation on the prototype for non-specialists. It will be distributed in the Task.

  • Prepare an article for Solar Energy based on this documentation.

  • Based on this same documentation and on experience gained by the Task (NASA, SoDa, PV-GIS, Satel-Light, SOLEMI), prepare documents for property rights.

  • Analyze questionnaire returns and produce a document on user requirements. This document will feed the subtasks. Prepare an article for Solar Energy.

  • Proceed with the specifications document for the first prototype.

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