Deploying Web-Based Visual Exploration Tools on the Grid

Grid-based computing facilitates access to different resources. But management in a grid-based environment isn't centralized. To use grid resources effectively, researchers need a central access point to manage the resources, provide a visual means to explore the data, and record these explorations for further investigation and dissemination. This article describes such a system that's being developed jointly by the University of California, Davis, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The centralized system acts as a portal into grid-enabled visualization systems. Scientists using the portal can focus on the important task of extracting insights from their data through visualization instead of having to worry about process management. Because scientists at LBNL and their collaborators require access to the portal from around the world, the portal's interface is entirely Web-based. Authenticated users only need a standards-compliant Web browser to explore their data from anywhere in the world. The portal provides a Web-based interface not just for exploring but also for encapsulating visualization data. Encapsulating the process lets users reproduce the visualization results for validation or extend those results by continuing data exploration. We discuss the integration of our grid-enabled visualization server, the visualization Web application that performs the visualization session management, and the Web-based interface.