Online resources provided and referenced by IWXXM

[blchoy]

UUIDs are used in AIXM as a unique pointer to feature instances, like aerodrome (see their document on Feature identification and reference for details). They do this through the use of gml:identifier:

<aixm:AirportHeliport ...>
    <gml:identifier codeSpace="faa">uuid.a82b3fc9-4aa4-4e67-8def-aaea1ac595j</gml:identifier>
    ...
</aixm:AirportHeliport>

and referencing it in some other instances in this way, if the above record is hosted on an FAA server:

<iwxxm:aerodrome xlink:href="http://aim.faa.gov/services/AirspaceService#uuid.a82b3fc9-4aa4-4e67-8def-aaea1ac595j">

Starting with the IWXXM WAFS SIGWX Forecast package, gml:identifier will also be used to identify individual iwxxm:MeteorologicalFeature (e.g. a turbulence polygon). The last line of the WAFS-Example.xml shows what one can do to reference this object if this is available as an online resource.

While it is still a long way to the provision and consumption of online resources, especially our use cases cover situations where network access may or may not be available when consuming the IWXXM report, it also gives us food for thought of the future mix of information, services and systems.

Just a point to note: WMO WIS2 is built upon the Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA) whereas the foundation of SWIM is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). It would be interesting to learn from WIS2 the experience on developing, maintaining and operating online resources before deciding how we deal with aviation meteorological information on SWIM.