SHARED WORKSPACES: A CONCEPT FOR IMPLEMENTING A DISTRIBUTED eSCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT IN GRID- AND CLOUD-BASED INFRASTRUCTURES

摘要

Modem science requires a close collaboration of scientists who are possibly scattered all over the world. The ongoing spreading of the internet and the emergence of grid and cloud techniques in recent years have caused intensified efforts in the development of infrastructures that are suitable to enhance a world-wide collaboration of researchers. The term 'eScience' designates a scientific paradigm which has the primary goal to employ a shared digital infrastructure to improve the collaboration of researchers in the core areas of science. Nevertheless, a mere interconnection of hardware resources, programs, and data would be insufficient to achieve this aim. In this paper we will propose the concept of Shared Workspaces which will simplify the worldwide interdisciplinary collaboration. A platform based on this concept implements a controlled and secure communication, facilitates a connection with high performance computers, and enables the exchange and archiving of programs, data, communications and (intermediate) results. It also allows a connection to legacy projects and repositories.