A review of digital object architecture and handle system: Development, current applications and prospective

Abstract

With the continuously growing data, humanity is engaging in a digital age. The importance of data is accentuated, and the future world will presumably be a world of digital objects. That circumstance makes people start thinking of a means to manage and efficiently identify data. The Digital Object Architecture (DOA) is a comprehensive architecture for managing digital objects with a persistent identifier assigned by the Handle System. They are applied in several sectors to manage data. However, their utilization faces some limitations. This paper provides a brief overview and explores their real-world application. It also analyzes those architectures’ challenges and suggest ideas for future research to overcome those challenges. To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first review that elucidates the DOA and the Handle System. The analysis reveals that most of the research focused on three areas: the IoT (Internet of Things) and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), educational domain and research, and multimedia content. There are also a few papers on the application in other sectors like logistics and supply chain, authorization, and authentication systems. The study also shows recent interest in the association of DOA and Handle Systems with blockchain.