Synchronize your resources with ResourceSync

In just 7 minutes you’ll know what ResourceSync is, why it is required, what you might use it for, and where to learn more about how to use it.

1. Many applications need up-to-date copies of collections of changing Web resources. Such synchronization is currently achieved using ad-hoc or proprietary solutions — there are no widely adopted, web-based approaches.
2. Use cases include replication and reuse of data and articles in scholarly repositories, maintenance of local copies of Linked Data for improved access and availability, or aggregation of data from multiple sources for indexing or preservation.
3. ResourceSync is a general Web resource synchronization framework that addresses these and other use cases. It provides a set of capabilities that can be combined in a modular manner to meet local or community requirements.
4. From the client perspective synchronization involves one or more of three tasks: baseline synchronization to make the initial copy, incremental synchronization to keep up-to-date, and audit for verification.
5. Servers may implement different combinations of ResourceSync capabilities to support these client tasks in different ways. All documents communicating information about resources and capabilities in ResourceSync are based on the widely used Sitemap XML document formats.
6. The framework is extensible and can support facilities such as the communication of references to mirror locations of synchronization resources, transferring only patches for changed resources, and offering historical data.
7. This is an open standard in beta as of January 2013, and will be finalized before the Open Repositories conference. Tools and libraries are being developed to ease implementation.