JISC

Start date: 1 December 2005

End date: 30 November 2006

Funding programme: Support for e-Research programme

Project website: http://pascal.mvc.mcc.ac.uk:9080/gems

JISC theme(s): e-Research

Aims and Objectives

The purpose of the Grid Enabling MIMAS Services (GEMS) project is to provide Grid enabled access to the aggregate statistics from the 2001 Census via OGSA-DAI on the National Grid Service (NGS).

• Interface the Census database to NGS hosted OGSA-DAI instance
• Modify the existing the Casweb web interface to work with GEMS grid service & OGSA-DAI
• Implement a bridge between Athens/Shibboleth and grid middleware certificate authentication/authorization
• Offer a value added service for Census data clients through an OGSA-DAI grid service activity
• Integrate the existing ConvertGrid geographic data conversion service into the OGSA-DAI grid service activity

Project Methodology

Both the MOSES team at Leeds University and the GeoVue team at UCL in London were consulted to determine their needs and establish and how they could benefit from GEMS.

The GEMS grid service also leverages on the work carried out with ConvertGrid by integrating the data conversion service into the GEMS OGSA-DAI grid service activity.

Implications / Deliverables / Stakeholders

There already is an established demand for grid enabled access to 2001 Census aggregate data (MOSES & GeoVue NCeSS Nodes) and GEMS means to demonstrate how an existing data service infrastructure can be Grid enabled in a standards compliant and sustainable way by providing an OGSA-DAI grid service, well as a user friendly web interface, to the Census data set.