iRODS Primer: Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System

Policy-based data management enables the creation of community-specific collections. Every collection is created for a purpose. The purpose defines the set of properties that will be associated with the collection. The properties are enforced by management policies that control the execution of procedures that are applied whenever data are ingested or accessed. The procedures generate state information that defines the outcome of enforcing the management policy. The state information can be queried to validate assessment criteria and verify that the required collection properties have been conserved. The integrated Rule-Oriented Data System implements the data management framework required to support policy-based data management. Policies are turned into computer actionable Rules. Procedures are composed from a Micro-service-oriented architecture. The result is a highly extensible and tunable system that can enforce management policies, automate administrative tasks, and periodically validate assessment criteria.

Table of Contents: Introduction / Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System / iRODS Architecture / Rule-Oriented Programming / The iRODS Rule System / iRODS Micro-services / Example Rules / Extending iRODS / Appendix A: iRODS Shell Commands / Appendix B: Rulegen Grammar / Appendix C: Exercises / Author Biographies