Synchronization of APIIS based farm animal biodiversity systems

One of the major problems in the management of farm animal and biodiversity information is the exchange of data and keeping it up-to-date, an issue that is very common with distributed information systems consisting of number of databases. This article describes the synchronization protocol developed in APIIS (adaptable platform independent information system) framework and reviews the basic considerations required when building distributed information system that has to exchange information in a network of APIIS based systems. The protocol is designed to synchronize a common part of different database structures. It is developed without any intended use of proprietary database engine and can work with a variety of RDBMS (relational database management system). The main targets of the protocol are animal biodiversity information systems without permanently connected nodes. The EFABIS (European farm animal biodiversity information system) is reviewed as an example of the implementation. AVAILABILITY: The synchronization protocol is integrated as a part of the APIIS framework, which is freely available from the authors.