Cross Network Directory Service (CNDS)

The Cross Network Directory Service (CNDS) was built on the PopMedNet (PMN) platform. PMN is a scalable and extensible open-source informatics platform designed to facilitate the implementation and operation of distributed health data networks. PMN currently enables creation, operation, and governance of distributed health data networks. It supports distributed within-network querying for several large-scale health data networks.

CNDS extends PMN’s existing functionality to enable cross-network discovery of potential collaborators and data sources and querying of those sources while enforcing governance rules. A flexible data model to capture the metadata collected was developed and integrates CNDS with PopMedNet. As such, a PopMedNet instance needs to be deployed to use CNDS. 

CNDS is a set of services that can be invoked by PMN instances, rather than by wholesale modification of PMN. CNDS provides a standard set of functions that PMN can call upon through APIs.