Fw: Advice needed on federated search

["Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress" <rden@loc.gov>]

Anyone here have any advice I can pass on to Mr. Lemen?  --Ray

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Lemen" <dave.lemen@ugov.gov>
To: <rden@loc.gov>
Cc: "John E. Hale" <john.e.hale@ugov.gov>
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:06 AM
Subject: Advice needed on federated search


> Mr. Denenberg,
>
> I've been following the work of the OASIS SWS Technical Committee with 
> interest. The organization I support, Intelligence Community Enterprise 
> Solutions (ICES), is part of the Director of National Intelligence CIO 
> organization, and provides search and discovery services that allow the 
> sharing and integration of information between the intelligence agencies 
> and their customers. In addition to providing search tools (as well as 
> other community services) on Intelink, ICES is also the DoD's managed 
> service provider for Content Discovery on its secret and unclassified 
> networks.
>
> As you may know, the DoD developed a Search Web Service specification 
> under the Horizontal Fusion program back in the 2003-2004 time frame. 
> Since then, the IC and DoD have tried, unsuccessfully, to arrive at an 
> updated, joint federated search protocol. There's general support for 
> using a combination of Atom, OpenSearch, and the Defense Discovery 
> Metadata Standard (DDMS) as the basis for a new specification. However, we 
> haven't come to agreement on query syntax or Web service style (SOAP vs. 
> REST). Our decision on Web service style is very much affected by the 
> access controls on some of the content sources, and use cases that involve 
> federating searches across security domains.
>
> Our organization would appreciate your input on some very near-term 
> decisions we need to make in this area. Specifically, what protocol(s) 
> would you recommend we implement this year (and what should we avoid), in 
> order to line up with the direction you see the OASIS work going? Also, 
> what direction do you see commercial product support going in this area?
>
> Please call me at the number below if you'd like. We can also arrange to 
> visit your office, or host a visit to ours as your schedule allows.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dave Lemen
> DNI CIO | IC Enterprise Solutions
> CSC Contractor
> dave.lemen@ugov.gov
> 410-854-9634