Engineering design and optimisation is a computationally intensive process where data may be generated at different locations with different characteristics. Data is traditionally stored in flat files with little descriptive metadata provided by the file system. Our focus is on providing data management by leveraging existing database tools that are not commonly used in engineering and making them accessible to users of the system. We provide engineers with a familiar interface enabling them to work with functions and variables rather than XML, SOAP, SQL, XPath, etc. The underlying functionality is implemented with the following services which provide API access to relational and XML databases and remote file stores:
Storage service - Applications can store and retrieve data based on unique file handles. This data is sent over GridFTP securely and stored in file systems curated by Geodise.

Metadata archive and query services - This data can be stored with additional descriptive information detailing technical characteristics (e.g. location, format), ownership, and application domain specific metadata. Queries over the metadata database can help users to locate the needed data intuitively and efficiently.
Authorisation service - Access rights to data can be granted to an authenticated user based on information stored in the authorisation database.
Location service - The location service provides access to a database of handles mapped to file locations.

As the OGSA-DAI project makes releases of its software (most of what we have produced predates even their first early releases), we will build on their technology for the lowest level services and we are in contact with them.

GUI Application