A MetaServer is considered a central broker providing a collated view (similar to a database view

View (database)

In database theory, a view consists of a stored query accessible as a virtual table in a relational database or a set of documents in a document-oriented database composed of the result set of a query or map and reduce functions...

) for dispersed web resources

Resource (Web)

The concept of resource is primitive in the Web architecture, and is used in the definition of its fundamental elements. The term was first introduced to refer to targets of Uniform Resource Locators , but its definition has been further extended to include the referent of any Uniform Resource...

. It is used to collect data from various web service

Web service

A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...

s, web page

Web page

A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...

s, database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s, or other online resources/repositories and then present the combined results to the client

Client (computing)

A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....

 using a standard web protocol (e.g. HTTP with HTML

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

, REST

Rest

Rest may refer to:* Leisure* Human relaxation* SleepRest may also refer to:* Rest , a pause in a piece of music* Rest , the relation between two observers* Rest , a 2008 album by Gregor Samsa...

, SOAP

SOAP

SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...

, XML-RPC

XML-RPC

XML-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism. "XML-RPC" also refers generically to the use of XML for remote procedure call, independently of the specific protocol...

, etc.).

Styles of use

The purpose of such a system is to provide one or several of the following:

• a unified view on multiple resources
• easy comparison of the data
• standardized access to different repositories
• calibration of the data
• determining the data consensus

Example MetaServer projects

Typical, wide spread implementations of MetaServers are:

• Meta-Search-Engines
• DNS MetaServers
• Protein Structure and Function Prediction Gateways
• Computer Game MetaServers