Deployment and exploitation of Grid-enabled data management for engineers
Jasmin Wason, Zhuoan Jiao, Wenbin Song, Andrew Price, Simón Cox · ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) · 2004
In this paper we describe the Geodise Database Toolbox, which utilises Web services, XML, databases and Grid technologies to help manage data created by engineering applications running locally or on the Grid. It has been integrated into the Matlab and Jython scripting environments for ease of use, and into other applications via its Java API. The toolbox supports centralised vs. personal data repositories, the former accessed via secure Web services from platform independent client applications. Metadata can be easily defined on files, data structures, collections of related data, and workflows. A distinctive feature is the support for user-defined application specific metadata that can be queried to locate required data efficiently. We describe the toolbox, how it has been deployed and exploited, and indicate that our approach has proved sufficiently generic to be useful in a range of application areas.