Download Virtual Geophysics Laboratory: Enabling a scientific marketplace

Virtual Geophysics Laboratory: Enabling a scientific
marketplace
Ryan Fraser1, Terry Rankine2, Josh Vote3, Robert Woodcock4
1CSIRO, Perth, Australia, [email protected]
2CSIRO, Perth, Australia, [email protected]
3CSIRO, Perth, Australia, [email protected]
4CSIRO, Canberra, Australia, [email protected]
VIRTUAL GEOPHYSICS LABORATORY
Over the last five decades geoscientists from Australian state and federal agencies have collected and
assembled around 3 Petabytes of geoscience data sets under public funding. As a consequence of technological
progress, data is now being acquired at exponential rates and in higher resolution than ever before. Effective
use of these big data sets challenges the workflow, storage and computational infrastructure of most
organisations. The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) is a scientific workflow portal that addresses some of
these issues by providing Australian geophysicists with access to a Web based, integrated environment that
exploits eResearch tools and Cloud computing technology, and promotes collaboration between scientists.
VGL simplifies and automates large portions of what were previously manually intensive scientific
workflow processes, allowing scientists to focus on their specific contribution rather than all aspects of an
experiment. A number of geophysical processing codes are incorporated to support multiple workflows. For
example a gravity inversion can be performed by combining the Escript/Finley codes (from the University of
Queensland) with the gravity data (from Geoscience Australia) registered in VGL. Likewise, tectonic processes
can also be modelled by combining the Underworld code (from Monash University) with one of the various 3D
models available to VGL. Cloud services provide scalable and cost effective compute resources.
VGL's "mix and match" approach to data, computational resources and scientific codes, enables a dynamic
approach to scientific collaboration. VGL allows scientists to publish their specific contribution, be it data,
code, compute or work flow, knowing the VGL framework will provide other components needed for a
complete application. Other scientists can choose the pieces that suit them best to assemble an experiment.
The coarse grain workflow of the VGL framework combined with the flexibility of the scripting library and
computational toolboxes allows for significant customisation and sharing amongst the community.
VGL is built on top of mature standards-compliant information services, many deployed using the Spatial
Information Services Stack (SISS), which provides direct access to geophysical data. A large number of data
sets from Geoscience Australia and AuScope partners assist users in accessing suitable data. GeoNetwork
provides a metadata catalogue to store workflow results for future use, discovery and provenance tracking. The
scientific software is packaged into toolboxes that can be run on the NeCTAR Cloud.
VGL has been developed in collaboration with the research community using incremental software
development practices and open source tools. While developed to provide the geophysics research community
with a sustainable platform and scalable infrastructure; VGL has also developed a number of concepts,
patterns and generic components which have been reused for cases beyond geophysics, including natural
hazards, satellite processing and other areas requiring spatial data discovery and processing.
Future plans for VGL include a number of improvements in both functional and non-functional areas in
response to its user community needs and advancement in information technologies. In particular, research is
underway in the following areas (a) distributed and parallel workflow processing in the cloud, (b) seamless
integration with various cloud providers, and (c) integration with virtual laboratories representing other
science domains.
Figure 1: VGL provides map interface for data
discovery and subset selection
Figure 2: Toolboxes and Cloud providers can
be selected for running experiments
Brisbane | Australia
20–25 Oct | 2013
7th eResearch Australasia Conference
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
VGL was developed by CSIRO in collaboration with AuScope, Geoscience Australia, National Computational
Infrastructure, Australia National University, Monash University and University of Queensland, and has been
supported by the Australian Government's Education Investment Funds through NeCTAR.
Brisbane | Australia
20–25 Oct | 2013
7th eResearch Australasia Conference