gCube is a framework dedicated to scientists. It enables the declarative and interactive
creation of transient Virtual Research Environments that aggregate and deploy on-demand
content resources and application services by exploiting computational and storage
resources of a grid infrastructure.
gCube system is a Software Platform for the implementation and servicing of Virtual Research Environments (VRE) based on the Service Oriented Paradigm and a number of specifications and technologies that relate to the technological and functional areas addressed by its core services.
gCube system is Open Source Software and the base technologies that underly its development are
gCube system not only provides a complete set of services to support the instantiation of VREs, but also provides a set of sub-frameworks for the adaptation and expansion of its services and capabilities, so that the provided features can match the requirements of a particular scientific application domain.
Success Stories
The gCube software is installed in an e-Infrastructure operated by the D4Science project, and its successor the D4Science-II project. The D4Science e-Infrastructure builds upon the EGEEgLite-based grid and is powered by the gCube system.
The D4Science e-Infrastructure spans across 7 sites in 3 countries. It counts about 100 nodes and 850 TB of storage, contributed by 5 partner entities. The D4Science e-Infrastructure serves today almost 200users, belonging to 2communities of users.
What does the D4Science e-Infrastructure offer?
By operating the gCube software, the D4Science e-Infrastructure offers to its user communities coordinated and secure sharing of computing and storage resources, as well as software tools, services and data repositories. It allows specific scientific research groups inside the user communities cost-effective, scalable and highly-configurable set up of multi-disciplinary Virtual Research Environments (VREs) for the generation and dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge.
The D4Science e-Infrastructure interfaces and uses the computational and storage capabilities offered by the grid operated by the EGEEproject (www.eu-egee.org). In this way, it delivers a data infrastructure for the generation, curation, representation, and management of large data sets.
316 build executions, including those needed to fix the bugs discovered (and submitted through TRAC tickets), more than 2400 deployment test executions and more than 44000 test case executions.
The 1st D4Science training event for e-Infrastructure administrators and Virtual Organization managers took place in ESA/ESRIN premises, Frascati (Italy) on 7-9 October 2009
The 8th Technical Committee (TCom) meeting took place between the 14-18 of September 2009 in Budapest, Hungary. The meeting was organised by 4D SOFT Számítástechnikai Kft (4DSoft) at the Lions Garden Hotel in Budapest.
The 7th Technical Committee (TCom) meeting took place between the 8-11 of June 2009 in Chania, Greece. The meeting was organised by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) at the Santa Marina Hotel in Crete.
