LifeWatch is the e-Science and Technology European Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, that aims to advance science in these disciplines and to address the big environmental challenges as well as to support knowledge-based strategic solutions to environmental preservation.

This mission is achieved by providing access to a multitude of datasets, services, tools and computing resources in general, enabling the construction and operation of Virtual Research Environments (VREs).

One of the goals of LifeWatch is to bring Information and Communication Technologies closer to the final researcher in such a way that managing the growing number of data sources can help to understand the biodiversity system as a whole.

LifeWatch is interested in the following functionalities implemented by XDC:

The user should be able to associate metadata in a flexible way and without a predefined format to the data that are uploaded.

The user should be able to search the data exploiting the metadata service. This should be possible for very large datasets

For example, move unused data from fast storage systems (disks) to “glacier-like” locations (sites providing tape). As a complementary functionality, a smart engine should infer when data are becoming “hot” again and move them back to the fast storage. Note: this functionality should be available at the infrastructure level, based on an inter-sites data movement, not only as an intra-site data placement.

When ingested by the infrastructure the user can specify tasks and workflow to be executed on data before being stored.

The system should be able to identify computing resources to perform the requested actions. The feature should be available at the infrastructure level, in a form that is pluggable with virtually any user-based application/algorithm. The user community should take care of the application that will be executed.

Examples:

  • experiment-independent quality checks before storing data
  • data skimming
  • metadata extraction
  • indexing