SOAP Class BiometricClassID

The BiometricClassID identifies a class within BioID Web Services. A class is an anonymous entity representing all the biometric data provided by a single individual.

[DataContract(Namespace = "http://schemas.bioid.com/2011/12/bws")]
public class BiometricClassID
{
    [DataMember]
    public string Storage { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int Partition { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int ClassID { get; set; }
}

Remarks

The BiometricClassID is a combination of a string and the BioID class ID, which again is made up of two parts, a Partition ID and the ClassID itself. The string specifies the Storage, e.g. the Windows Azure Storage Service or MongoDB instance to use, whereas the BioID class ID is used within this storage to address the Class.

BiometricClassID.Storage

A Storage represents a Windows Azure Storage Service, which provides persistent, redundant storage in the cloud. A storage is addressed by its name, which must be one of the names out of the collection of predefined storages. The available storages are defined with the service configuration. As each storage requires a storage account, i.e. in addition to the name an account-key is necessary, storages cannot be added or removed dynamically, instead they are managed by the Web Service Administrator on demands of the customer.

A Storage is really a huge unit of data entities (It can hold up to 1 TB of data). Typically multiple storages are only used for organizational (multiple service instances that shall use different storages) or regional (e.g. America, Europa, Asia, ...) purposes. Anyway, currently a single service can support up to 20 storages.

Alternatively, on-premises BWS installations typically use a MongoDB document database, which is accessed using a MongoDB connection string that is specified by this Storage.

BiometricClassID.Partition

A partition is a logical unit within a storage. The client application can organize its users in different partitions, e.g. departments, regions, or whatever. Anyway, we only support integers for partitions to ensure the anonymity of class IDs.

BiometricClassID.ClassID

This integer value is finally the ID of the class, which clearly defines a user within a Storage and Partition. This ID is also used internally by the BioID classifiers.