NetKernel Resource Models

A Resource Model provides the infrastructure for one more more specific types of information.

Specifically a resource model is an ecosystem consisting of:

• logical information type(s)
• physical resource representation(s) (object models)
• services and transformations that process resources of the supported types
• transreptors that convert between physical representations

For example the Image resource model is based on the information type Image - a logical two-dimensional bitmap image. The physical resource representations are based on an object model using the Java 2D API classes. The services include crop, rotate and scale - all of which perform operations on an image resource and return an image resource. Transformations allows specific standard encodings of the image to be produced such as GIF, PNG and JPEG. Transreptors are available to convert the image resource to and from a binary stream resource.

NetKernel provides several industry standard resource models including Image, XML, JSON, RDF and RSS/Atom Feeds. Resource models allow developers to work with information as logical abstractions without dealing with the complexities associated with the underlying physical objects.

The Pinky resource model is interesting because it is an application level resource model built on top of XML. Pinky provides an abstract view of ATOM and RSS feed information, both of which are XML formats. Developers can use Pinky instead of the XML resource model to process ATOM and RSS information because it provide tools that understand the semantics of this information. In addition, since this is a specialism of XML, the Pinky model interoperates seamlessly with the more general XML model so Pinky resources can be processed by the XML tool chain.

NetKernel is easily extended with the addition of new resource models. It is simple to create a collection of services and representations to suit the specifics of the information processing system you wish to develop. For example an insurance company can build a claim form resource model. This would be built on their physical representation (object model) for a claim form and might include tools such as updateAddress, addPhoto, queryClaim, claimToPDF and others - all of which are specific to this application and the specifics of this set of information.

Resource models are powerful and valuable because they support rapid development at a logical level by snap-fitting tools together to create the desired information process.

To learn about building new resource models refer to the NetKernel Extension Guide.