gCube is a new service-oriented application framework that supports the on-demand sharing of computational, content, and application services resources. Through this capability, gCube enables the realisation of e-Infrastructures supporting the notion of Virtual Research Environments (VREs), i.e. collaborative digital environments through which scientists, addressing common research challenges, exchange information and produce new knowledge. gCube is currently used as the system governing the e-infrastructure set up by the EU 6FP IST DILIGENT integrated project.

gCube is being developed by the Technical Committee of the DILIGENT project and its distribution is currently restricted to authorised institutions and teams.

The Alpha Release allowed us to observe the test-bed in a controlled Grid environment in order to validate the architecture and the functionalities of the system. The list of gCube software components and internal and external dependencies are listed in the Alpha Release page.

The Beta Release is available for download in the Beta Release page. The Beta Release is the second major release of the gCube system. It passed all units, components, deployment and integration tests. The functional and system testing have identified a number of weakness and potential improvements that have been submitted for evaluation to the gCube Technical Committee.

The Final Release Candidate, named gCube FRC, has been achieved in October. It passed all units, components, deployment and integration tests. The FRC release is the result of an intense testing activites mainly dedicated to verify the behaviour of the framewrok in a distributed tight secured infrastructure. It also solves the weaknesses identified by the user communities in the Beta release.

The Final Release, named gCUbe 1.0, has been achieved in December. The gCube 1.0 will be soon available for download in the gCube 1.0 Release page.