Keywords
e-infrastructure, virtual research communities, multidisciplinary environmental research, service oriented architecture
Start Date
1-7-2010 12:00 AM
Abstract
Research e-infrastructures are considered to have generic and thematic parts. The generic part provides high-speed networks, grid (large-scale distributed computing) and database systems (digital repositories and data transfer systems) applicable to all research communities irrespective of discipline. Thematic parts are specific deployments of e-infrastructures to support diverse virtual research communities. The needs of a virtual community of multidisciplinary environmental researchers are yet to be investigated. We envisage and argue for an e-infrastructure that will enable environmental researchers to develop environmental models and software entirely out of existing components through loose coupling of diverse digital resources based on the service-oriented architecture. We discuss four specific aspects for consideration for a future e-infrastructure: 1) provision of digital resources (data, models and tools) as web services, 2) dealing with stateless and nontransactional nature of web services using workflow management systems, 3) enabling web service discovery, composition and orchestration through semantic registries, and 4) creating synergy with existing grid infrastructures.
Towards a service-oriented e-infrastructure for multidisciplinary environmental research
Research e-infrastructures are considered to have generic and thematic parts. The generic part provides high-speed networks, grid (large-scale distributed computing) and database systems (digital repositories and data transfer systems) applicable to all research communities irrespective of discipline. Thematic parts are specific deployments of e-infrastructures to support diverse virtual research communities. The needs of a virtual community of multidisciplinary environmental researchers are yet to be investigated. We envisage and argue for an e-infrastructure that will enable environmental researchers to develop environmental models and software entirely out of existing components through loose coupling of diverse digital resources based on the service-oriented architecture. We discuss four specific aspects for consideration for a future e-infrastructure: 1) provision of digital resources (data, models and tools) as web services, 2) dealing with stateless and nontransactional nature of web services using workflow management systems, 3) enabling web service discovery, composition and orchestration through semantic registries, and 4) creating synergy with existing grid infrastructures.
