Infrastructure Aware Scientific Workflows and Their Support by a Science Gateway

Abstract

The workflow interoperability problem was successfully solved by the SHIWA project if the workflows to be integrated were running in the same grid infrastructure. However, in the more generic case when the workflows were running in different infrastructures the problem has not been solved yet. In the current paper we show a solution for this problem by introducing a new type of workflow called as infrastructure-aware workflow. These are scientific workflows extended with new node types that enable the on-the-fly creation and destruction of the required infrastructures in the clouds. The paper shows the semantics of these new types of nodes and workflows and also how they can solve the workflow interoperability problem. The paper also describes how these new type of workflows can be implemented by a new service called as One Click Cloud Orchestrator and how this service can be integrated with the existing SHIWA Simulation Platform services like the WS-PGRADE/gUSE portal to provide the required functionalities of solving the workflow interoperability problem.