CDR: Brokered Search (2)

CDR: Brokered Search (2)

Chief Information Officer

IC CIO Enterprise Integration & Architecture

Overview

This IC/DoD enterprise encoding specification defines requirements and provides guidelines for the realization of the Content Discovery and Retrieval (CDR) Brokered Search Component as a web service using both the SOAP messaging protocol and the RESTful OpenSearch [OS] standard (intended to provide minimal requirements for implementing an OpenSearch search broker), hereafter termed a Brokered Search service. The Brokered Search Component serves as the primary mechanism to 1) facilitate the distribution of queries to applicable/relevant Search Components and content collections. These Search Components expose and 2) aggregate the results returned individually into a single uniform results set. The content of this specification provides enough information for Broker Search Component providers and implementers to create CDR-compliant Brokered Search Components, the specification describes a Brokered Search Component’s behavior, interface, and other aspects in detail.

The Brokered Search Component uses the basic functionality described by the Search Component for a single search. Additional inputs and outputs are defined as needed to support the four activities that underpin Brokered Search capabilities: brokered search coordination, source identification, search component invocation, and federation results processing. A Search component’s results are resource metadata rather than actual content resources. In the context of Search, resource metadata generally refers to a subset of a resource’s available metadata, not the entire underlying record. The Search Component returns metadata about a resource, which may sometimes describe the underlying resource (e.g., an image), while other times representing a sub-set of the data that makes up a resource (e.g., a collection of attributes). In some cases, the metadata returned from an instantiation of the Search function and the Retrieve function, which returns a resource itself, may happen to be the same, though this is considered an edge condition. Some of the information contained within each Search result may provide the information necessary for a consumer to retrieve or otherwise use a resource.

This specification supports Intelligence Community Directive 501(ICD 501), Discovery, Dissemination or Retrieval of Information within the Intelligence Community, which establishes policies for (1) discovery, and (2) dissemination or retrieval of intelligence and intelligence-related information collected, or analysis produced by the Intelligence Community.

Compliance with this specification is measured against all aspects of the technical and documentary artifacts contained within the specification release package. This specification is maintained by the IC Chief Information Officer via the Services Coordination Activity (SCA) and Content Discovery and Retrieval Integrated Product Team (CDR IPT).

Value Proposition

This specification is designed to fulfill a number of requirements in support of the transformational efforts of the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense Enterprise(IC/DoD). Features of the Brokered Search Specification are to:

  • Facilitate the distribution of queries to applicable/relevant Search Components and content collections these Search Components expose.
  • Aggregate the results returned individually into a single, uniform results set which is returned to the Consumer Component.

 

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