caGrid 1.2 New Features

Key Enhancements

caGrid 1.2 represents another step in the evolution of caGrid to better address the requirements of the research community. It includes important new features and enhancements and is backwards compatible with 1.x versions of caGrid. A detailed listing of the changes from caGrid 1.1 can be found in the release notes, but highlights include:

• Usability Improvements

caGrid 1.2 adds a new component, caGrid Transfer Service, that provides a simplified approach towards building data services that need to handle large scale data queries. Also, the process of creating and deploying data services in Introduce Toolkit has been greatly improved to allow users to take advantage of such advanced mechanisms.

• Security

caGrid 1.2 continues to make major advancements in caGrid GAARDS security infrastructure. A new set of framework has been developed, called the Web Single Sign On (WebSSO) that provides an out-of-box comprehensive Single Sign On solution for Web applications that use the caGrid GAARDS framework. It includes the newly developed Credential Delegation Service, to support the delegation of grid credential between users and services in a seamless manner.

• Continuous Integration

caGrid 1.2 is integrated with the Apache Ivy build system to substantially improve dependency management of sub projects within the caGrid core infrastructure. Users will now have more control over the specific components needed for integrating their services with caGrid 1.2. The caGrid 1.2 also supports the latest releases (version 4.0) of caCORE Software Development Kit and Common Security Module.

• Workflow Improvements - Early Preview

caGrid 1.2 provides early preview of the ability to orchestrate caGrid services in a workflow using the Taverna workbench. Users can automatically download the caGrid plug-in from Taverna and use it develop workflows in the rich user interface provided by Taverna. The instructions on how to create a simple workflow using Taverna can be found in the caGrid users guide and on the caGrid wiki. This integration will be further enhanced in the future releases based on user feedback.