What is a Product ?
The main notion to understand about REGARDS catalog before looking at its architecture and concepts is to understand the
concept of Products.
A Product is the association between :
0 to Xraw data file(s). Data files can be scientific files, documents, thumbnails, quicklooks, html files,...- Some metadata to describe the product and to describe raw data file(s)
Metadata are useful
The main idea of Products is to always have a description of the data files in the catalog.
If you do not have any metadata on a product, it will be harder for end users to search and select products without
looking at raw data file(s) filenames...
A Product in REGARDS catalog can have only metadata, but never only data files.
All products in REGARDS catalog are versioned.