The OSC SciPortal, is a WebFlow (WF) Problem Solving Environment (PSE) which provides, to the user, transparent access to distributed back end resources, remote file services, archiving and journaling. One goal of the OSC SciPortal is to generate computational resource requests from user developed problem descriptions. The PSE is the interface in which problems to be solved are stated, translated into requests for computational resources (such as software, hardware, information resources and other types of resources), and an analysis of the results can be performed. This multi-step view of doing science is encompassed in the different parts (toolkits) of OSC SciPortal.
The OSC SciPortal is a combination of a knowledge base of computational methods and codes combined with interaction from a user. Access to archives of user results is provided via a set of OSC SciPortal navigation bars and links.
The different steps in transforming the problem are encapsulated as toolkits, and the SciPortal interface with the WebFlow system handles the computational requests by passing the requests to the middle tier (WebFlow), via http or https by the browser. Specifically, the communication between the PSE and the middle tier object manager WebFlow occurs via a set of objects defined as part of the logical flow of the PSE.
The OSC SciPortal model starts with defining a problem (the science), then the system determines what can solve the science problem and generates a WebFlow session context and WebFlow application context to request for resources to solve the problem. The SciPortal provides navigation to access all the SciPortal actions:
The OSC SciPortal information services consists of various types of information, stored as sets of XML files:
SciPortal modules provide mechanisms to maintain and update this information.
The OSC SciPortal supports various of scientific disciplines. The OSC SciPortal arranges the users activities into a set of toolbox kits. The OSC SciPortal provides a framework to construct the discipline specific toolboxes incorporating general capabilities such as file services, user authentication and a mechanism (an API) to incorporate discipline specific tools and add toolkits.
The primary OSC SciPortal toolkits. All toolkits (except the entry) support both the Advanced and User tracks. Each toolkit:
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The OSC SciPortal portal is arranged as a hierarchy of contexts, which are containers to hold information about users activities. The front end (the PSE uses these contexts to implement the various toolkits as depicted in the following diagram:
The PSE toolkits. All toolkits (except the entry) support both the Advanced and User tracks. |
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WebFlow is a distributed system but the information about available applications needs to be accessible to the PSE. Thus, a Code Information server will provide information concerning all registered sites. The Code Information Server will be a standard web server, such as Apache, and will provide different ports for various application areas to organize codes by discipline. Each site will register is AAD to a particular port on the server. To help consistency |
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