The FMR Workbench is a remote registry browser and metadata maintenance tool which brings the strengths and capabilities of the FMR User Interface to any SDMX compliant registry, implementing an SDMX RESTful API. One significant use case for FMR Workbench users is the ability to connect to .Stat-Suite spaces for browsing and maintaining .Stat-Suite structural metadata.

The FMR Workbench User Interface browses and displays the SDMX structures of the Environment it is connected to. An Environment is a connection to a collection of related SDMX web services for a single SDMX service offering. Related web services include the web service entry point to retrieve the structures, the entry point to save structures, and the entry point to delete structures. The UI of the FMR Workbench enables the user to switch their connection to an alternative Environment; the list of available Environments is defined in the configuration file for the FMR Workbench. The connected Environment is associated with the current user; this enables multiple users of the FMR Workbench to be connected to different Environments simultaneously. The Fusion Metadata Registry (FMR) Web User Interface was adopted and reused for the FMR Workbench UI as it is recognized as having many strengths, including:

• User-Friendly.
• Suitable for non-SDMX Experts as well as Experts.
• Wizard mode.
• Manual manipulations.

Fusion Metadata Registry (FMR)

Comparing FMR vs FMR Workbench

• FMR and FMR Workbench (FWB) share the same SDMX structural metadata registry engine and UI.
• The FMR User Interface supports viewing and maintaining structural metadata in addition to use cases for data validation, data conversion, data mapping and administration. The FWB User Interface is a minimized version that supports viewing and maintaining structural metadata.
• FMR provides compliant SDMX v1 and v2 REST API web services. FWB relies on external compliant SDMX v1 or v2 REST API web services, but also exposes those APIs via its own v1 and v2 REST API (where possible).
• The FMR UI acts upon its own local repository. The FWB UI connects to and acts upon any SDMX compliant Structure Web Services.
• In FMR, persistence of the registry content is integrated into the webapp which uses a MySQL, SQL Server or Oracle SQL database for storage. FWB however delegates persistence to decoupled SDMX structure repositories (eg .Stat Suite Spaces) and does not have any database requirements.
• FMR uses a database to store its configuration settings. FWB configuration is stored in a file.