Using ontologies for resource description in the CineGrid Exchange

Moving media data between CineGrid Exchange nodes or external sites, and properly handling them at source and destination, is a challenge for the CineGrid community. The heterogeneous nature of the Exchange nodes, and in particular the lack of a globally accepted description mechanism for distributed media repositories, requires customized solutions to realize the real-time delivery of digital assets.
To address these issues we developed a Web Ontology Language (OWL) ontology, the CineGrid Description Language (CDL). CDL, coupled with the already existing Network Description Language (NDL), provides a common description of the various network and computing components. Tools for resource discovery, selection and composition will use CDL for data delivery, storage and viewing use cases.
We present here the CDL ontology and an initial demonstration of its applicability.