Using the Plier Toolbox to manipulate and share OPM data and graphs

PlierToolBox is a java-based application that allows the scientists to explore and share their OPM data in a user-friendly manner. It facilitates the navigation and exploration through scientific-workflow data with potentials for graphical visualization and sharing. In a typical scenario case, it is hard for the scientist to look backward into the log files in order to trace the workflow process. With PlierToolBox, however, these tasks are performed from a single-access point, where the scientist is provided with different views of the data in a structured manner. Furthermore, it provides mechanisms to visualize OPM graphs representing abstract and concrete experiments and to share them using XML serialization.

Functionalities:

PlierToolBox provides the following functionalities:

1. Connects to an OPM back-end database (the database must be conform to OpmDDL and populated with provenance data),
2. provides mechanisms do search and filter provenance data based on keywords, users, dates and time intervals,
3. provides a summary of all performed experiments with status and duration,
4. provides detailed information for each workflow experiment,
5. provides workflow graphs according to OPM and dot
6. provides mechanisms to export dot code for the experiment graphs
7. provides mechanisms to export OPM_XML code for the experiment workflows

Technical Details:

1. PlierToolBox deploys a back-end relational database, in accordance to the database schema defined in OpmDDL.
2. OPM database is usually populated with provenance data using the Plier API (e.g. deployed within a workflow system).
3. The following SQL script (SummaryScript) can be run against the OPM database, in order to fill-up summary fields in the OPM_GRAPH table.
4. The summary fields help in providing a global overview/summary of each graph (status, duration, number of processes, etc.).
5. To be able to use the grahical capabilities of PlierToolBox you need do download and install the GraphViz software

Download PlierToolBox:

1. Download the latest version of Plier Toolbox.

Screenshoots:

1. PlierToolBox: experiments summary
   
   
   
2. PlierToolBox: experiment graph
   
   
   
3. PlierToolBox: OPM XML
   
   
4. PlierToolBox: customized experiment graph
   
   
   

-- AmmarBenabdelkader - 08 Mar 2011
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