What is the G-R-Toolkit?
The G-R-Toolkit combines the best software developed at SFTC during its e-Science Programme from 2001-2007. It allows users of many applications in computational research to manage their high-performance computing and data and information management tasks directly from their desktop systems. Components of G-R-T, some of which are available separately include:
GROWL Scripts - facilitate management of digital certificates and access to datasets on remote Grid resources. |
SRB Client and RCommands - desktop tools to manage stored datasets and meta-data |
RMCS - uses Condor DAGMan to create and enact workflows to integrate data management and remote computation |
R, Perl and Python framework – scripting interface suitable for many research domains from bio-informatics to chemistry |
AgentX - a sophisticated semantic toolset using domain specific ontologies to link applications with ASCII, XML and DB formats |
G-R-T C library – Web service clients appropriate for application programming |
How does G-R-T exploit the Grid?
G-R-T uses Grid middleware to perform its tasks on behalf of the user. Well known technology is re-deployed on a dedicated intermediate server, including Condor, Globus, SRB and
MyProxy.
Complementarity and Extendability
G-R-T will work alongside and extend existing toolkits. It has a “plug-in” capability allowing Grid client functionality to be imported into applications such as Matlab, Stata, Materials Studio and others. G-R-T is written in a modular style using Web services to achieve a Service Oriented Architecture, a widely adopted pattern in software engineering. This enables its client side to be re-factored or extended to suit most research requirements.
User Manual
Go to
http://www.grids.ac.uk/NWGrid/grt_manual