[MOBY-l] MOBY Central SOAP public access available

[Mark Wilkinson]

The MOBY-Central interface is now available on a public server.  Please see the example client.pl script in the /Central/ folder of the CVS for connection details.  Don't forget to keep track of your registration ID's so that you can clean up after yourself :-)

Registering services is going to be difficult at first as we have only one object, and services are validated as to their input/output objects when you try to register them.  This should be a good incentive to start designing objects!!  I started things off with the root 'Object' object, but that's the only one in there; can someone with more experience please have a look at the xsd in the Object table and make sure it is correct... I think it is, but I may have been braindead at the time...  Objects and service
types (also part of the Service-registration validation) can also be registered through the MOBY-Central interface.

For lack of a better location,  for the moment we are port-forwarding the SOAPy part of  MOBY-Central requests to my own box so that I have more hands-on access to the modules and the right permissions to set them up without the intervention of our sysadmin.  Performance is not as good as it could/should be - once I get back from Calgary I'll get it to use mod-perl, etc, and that should speed things up quite a bit.  I'm also going to tackle the WSDL part of MOBY-Central responses as soon as I get home.

I'm in Calgary this week to discuss the GenomeCanada funding for MOBY with the other PI's on the application.  There are some peculiarities, to say the least, with the way the budget has been broken down, so I need to clear up some apparent misunderstandings...  in any case, by the time I get back on Friday I'll have a better idea of how much money we have to spend on the MOBY project at this end.

Heiko:  Thanks for your suggestions about matching funds coming from the E.U.  As I understand it, matching funds for Genome Canada money can take many forms, including cash, consumables,  hardware, software, and **personnel**.  I wonder if, perhaps, the latter of these would work best if we decide to pursue your idea?  Will you be at the ORIEL meeting in Heidelberg?  If so, we can talk then.

So... I'm MIA until Friday.  Chat to you all later in the week!

Best wishes,

Mark