Astronomical Data Publishing Techniques Oriented toward the WEB SERVICE

The current astronomical data publishing techniques are mainly based on Web pages and REST-style Web services. But there are many deficiencies in these techniques, in particular automated tools are not conducive to machine recognition and service invocation. The WEB SERVICE is a mature distributed-computing model. It has many advantages such as the cross-platform linkage and loose coupling so that it can be used to improve flexibility and automation of astronomical research. In this paper, we investigate applications of the WEB SERVICE in the Virtual Observatory and current major publishing techniques of astronomical data. On the basis of the investigation, we analyze how to achieve WEB SERVICE applications that comply with the IVOA specifications. We design and implement a Cone-Search Service application supporting both the SOAP and REST styles for an astronomical data publishing project. Our WS-I test results show that the service design is successful.