Content about interoperability

At the recent Internet2 Global Summit iSGTW sat down with George Komatsoulis to talk about the state of distributed research and the NIH Commons, a scalable virtual environment to provide high-performance computing and data storage for bio-medical research. When implemented, the Commons will create a marketplace for digital bio-medical resources, driving down costs and democratizing access.

Big data opens doors previously closed to researchers, yet the volume of data sends scientists looking for analytical tools to bring order from the informational cacophony. Prior to tools like Bioconductor, there were few options for working with quantitative data types; a discordant score for deciphering the human genetic code was the result.

Today, genomic analysis machines create a common language for users, and build a worldwide community to foster developers from among subject matter experts. These instruments make beautiful music from a mass of genomic information.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is set to hold its Fourth Plenary Meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, later this month. Hilary Hanahoe, the future coordinator of RDA Europe, tells iSGTW about the important work the organization has been carrying out in the run up to the event.

With global data output growing rapidly, it is vital that researchers come together to build the social and technical bridges required to enable open sharing of research data. The organization charged with achieving this is the Research Data Alliance (RDA), which recently celebrated its first anniversary.

Last month, the RDA held a plenary meeting in Dublin, Ireland. The 497 attendees at the event engaged in discussion on a wide variety of topics, ranging from the role of publishers and persistent identifiers to heritage data and legal interoperability. Data applications discussed also included geospatial information, marine observation, food production, and urban quality of life indicators.

Last month, local OpenStack users from France and Switzerland held a meeting at CERN. iSGTW discusses the event with Tim Bell, a member of the OpenStack management board and leader of the Operating Systems and Infrastructure Services group within CERN’s IT department. Bell explains the vital role OpenStack plays in enabling CERN to flexibly tailor its computing resources to meet demand, as well as its importance for other organizations across the globe.

Scientific output is not just about academic papers: datasets, software, and various forms of multimedia may be produced in the course of research. It is vital that these diverse outputs be citable using persistent identifiers, so that the sharing and the reuse of such materials can be tracked. 

Two weeks ago, the ODIN first year conference was held at CERN to discuss the challenges related to increasing the interoperability of persistent author and object identifiers. These efforts are of particular relevance to large research organizations like CERN, where some high-level datasets have recently been made available to other scientists for re-use.  Equally, the large numbers of collaborators working on the experiments on the Large Hadron Collider can make correct attribution of articles and datasets challenging, too.

Over 100 delegates gathered in Dublin, Ireland, at the end of May for the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group bi-annual workshop. Representatives from 23 countries met to discuss the best policies for coordination of a European-wide open and innovative e-infrastructure.

Last week, the 10^th e-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting took place, hosted by the European Commission Services with the support of the e-ScienceTalk project. Find out what delegates at the event had to say on the subject of measuring project impact and success.

Plus: Read the highlights of discussions concerning the development of the computational infrastructure of 21st century science.

Wolfgang Gentzsch, co-founder of the UberCloud HPC experiment and advisor to EUDAT, speaks exclusively to iSGTW about the challenges facing cloud computing in the run up to this month’s Cloudscape V conference in Brussels, Belgium. 

New developments and services for research and scientific communities are high on the agenda at Cloudscape V, 27-28 February 2013 at the International Auditorium in Brussels. 

Has big data now superseded the grid… and the cloud? Whether or not this is the case, it is vital that in moving from one paradigm to another we do not discard the experience and technology gained previously, says European Grid Infrastructure director Steven Newhouse.