A distributed data management middleware for data-driven application systems

A key challenge in supporting data-driven scientific applications is the storage and management of input and output data in a distributed environment. We describe a distributed storage middleware, based on a data and metadata management framework, to address this problem. In this middleware system, applications define the structure of their input and output data using XML schemas. The system provides support for 1) registration, versioning, management of schemas, and 2) management of storage, querying, and retrieval of instance data corresponding to the schemas in distributed databases. We carry out an experimental evaluation of the system on a set of PC clusters connected over wide- (WANs) and local-area networks (LANs).