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Shared Data Workspaces

In order to create effective platforms for collaborations, people in different geographical locations need to be able to share data. Scientific and engineering applications generate large amounts of distributed data (reaching terabytes or petabytes) and the size of data collections can only grow as new experiments and computational systems require higher capacity storage for results and simulation of large systems. This offers an opportunity to test and tune high bandwidth networks. 

The Access Grid (AG) is a collaborative research environment with potential for distributed data and visualization across networks and platforms. However currently the AccessGrid is used predominantly for videoconferencing with PowerPoint presentations. To extend the Access Grid beyond simple meeting scenarios and towards true collaborative working, we need to enable the incorporation of large data sets and collections into the AG environment.

Data Services

We are augmenting the collaborative capabilities offered by Access Grid with the Storage Resource Broker (SRB). The SRB is a middleware data-grid technology that provides a uniform interface to large heterogeneous data collections. With it powering the majority of data-grid projects around the world, augmenting AG with SRB allows potential access to extensive amount of existing distributed data (information on the Storage Resource Broker).

Figure 1: Merging of the Access Grid with the Storage Resource Broker.

Accessing large data within the AccessGrid environment is a priority for shared data intensive applications. VisLab has developed a virtual filesystem for the AccessGrid. The image below is a screen shot of the SRB Browser Interface during an AccessGrid session.

Visit the shared data virtual filesystem for the AccessGrid page on the VisLab website.

Contacts

Eric Liao, Bernard Pailthorpe
VisLab, University of Queensland