Metadata Architecture in RESTful Design

Abstract

Metadata is a key component of theREST architecture that can be used to provide additional information about web resources. The ultimate goal of metadata is to transform web resources into self describing information units that can be automatically processed by software agents.We review the main options present in the HTTP standard to providemetadata for web resources.We also review the main mechanisms proposed by standard organizations like theW3C and the IETF as well as by groups of practitioners to provide additional ways of associating metadata to resources. The connection between metadata and semantic web technologies is also explored. Finally the notion of resource and metadata discovery is also introduced and the main discovery technologies are reviewed. Introduction