Affiliations: Cardiff School of Computer Science, Cardiff
University, Queen's Buildings, 5 The Parade, Roath, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK | School of Plant Sciences, The University of Reading,
Berks RG6 6AS, UK | The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7
5BD, UK
Abstract: In the Biodiversity World (BDW) project we have created a flexible
and extensible Web Services-based Grid environment for biodiversity researchers
to solve problems in biodiversity and analyse biodiversity patterns. In this
environment, heterogeneous and globally distributed biodiversity-related
resources such as data sets and analytical tools are made available to be
accessed and assembled by users into workflows to perform complex scientific
experiments. One such experiment is bioclimatic modelling of the geographical
distribution of individual species using climate variables in order to explain
past and future climate-related changes in species distribution. Data sources
and analytical tools required for such analysis of species distribution are
widely dispersed, available on heterogeneous platforms, present data in
different formats and lack inherent interoperability. The present BDW system
brings all these disparate units together so that the user can combine tools
with little thought as to their original availability, data formats and
interoperability. The new prototype BDW system architecture not only brings
together heterogeneous resources but also enables utilisation of computational
resources and provides a secure access to BDW resources via a federated
security model. We describe features of the new BDW system and its security
model which enable user authentication from a workflow application as part of
workflow execution.
