Workflow
Modern science is a complex process. It often involves the coordination of multiple resources, such as instruments, computers and data stores, across multiple logical and physical domains.
For many years, there has been a concerted effort to build Grid middleware to bridge the gap between different hardware and software. Whilst powerful, Grid middleware is rather complicated for the average scientist, and thus primarily used by programmers. Science gateways and scientific workflows, although targeting different problems, are two paradigms that bring Grid's resources to scientists, without requiring them to have extensive knowledge about Grid computing.
Scientific workflows are mainly concerned with the automation, management and execution of various steps in scientific research. They provide a powerful unifying platform that allows scientists to build arbitrarily complicated computational applications by combining predefined components.
Workflow systems provide a wide range of those predefined components, ranging from acquiring data inputs from sensors, querying databases, performing data-mining, performing execution, through to visualising the results.
There are a large number of scientific workflow engines, and they have been applied in various science domains. RCC has specific expertise in the following:
