1. High Performance Computing Center – HLRS
Data Management and Integration within Collaborative Working Environments
Matthias Assel
High Performance Computing Center – HLRS
University Stuttgart

2. CoSpaces Shared Data Space ViroLab Virtual Laboratory Conclusions
Outline
Motivation
Systems Requirements
CoSpaces Shared Data Space
ViroLab Virtual Laboratory
Conclusions
ICEIS Matthias Assel

3. Motivation What we have… Distributed teams/groups
Distributed data/information
Distributed workflows
What we need…
New collaboration models and technologies
Integration of users, data, workflows, resources
Dynamic and on-demand accessibility
Creation of virtual labs for different domains, e.g.
Aerospace, Automotive, Health Care, etc.
ICEIS Matthias Assel

4. Systems Requirements
Virtualisation of resources/services
Decentralised authentication and authorisation infrastructure
Dynamic access control (policies)
Secure data transmission on several levels
(Automatic) data anonymisation vs. pseudonymisation
Additional policies for storing confidential data sets
Auditing of relevant user interactions
Methods for defining and negotiating service level agreements
and Flexibility, Usability, Scalability, Reliability, Performance…
ICEIS Matthias Assel

5. CoSpaces Project
The CoSpaces project is an IP funded by the EC under the IST Programme of the FP6, which involves 20 European partners and addresses three scientific and technological objectives
Evaluate and develop collaboration models in innovative collaborative work environments (CWE)
Create an innovative distributed software framework, which supports creation of CWE for distributed knowledge workers and teams in collaborative design and engineering tasks
Validate the distributed software framework in the Aerospace, Automotive, and Construction sectors
ICEIS Matthias Assel

6. CoSpaces Shared Data Space
Collaboration data stored in a dedicated shared data space, which is based on a modified version of the BSCW server
Located in the companies’ DMZ
DMZ protected by a separate firewall
User authentication and resource authorisation based on decentralised
authentication and authorisation infrastructure (Shibboleth)
Access rights are just granted on data within that data space
Access rights are fully controlled by corresponding data owner
Encryption of entire data traffic
ICEIS Matthias Assel

7. CoSpaces Shared Data Space
ICEIS Matthias Assel

8. ViroLab Virtual Laboratory
Funded by EC within the 6th Framework Programme in the
area of integrated biomedical information for better health
12 partners from 8 different European
countries
Develop a “Virtual Laboratory” for
medical experts that allows clinical
studies and medical knowledge
discovery for HIV drug resistance
Integrate the biomedical information
from viruses, patients, and literature into
a rule-based decision support system for
HIV drug ranking
ICEIS Matthias Assel

9. ViroLab Data Access and Integration
Usage of established HIV database management system: RegaDB
Data conversion, extraction, and anonymisation occur within each hospital
Set of virtualisation services - Data Access Services (DAS) - that allows users to perform several activities on dispersed data resources
Single/central entry point for all
data requests representing the only
“visible” and accessible system
Secure data exchange and proper
access control for certain resources
Integrated with existing frameworks
(Shibboleth, OGSA-DAI) to ease
development and improve functionality
ICEIS Matthias Assel

10. ViroLab Data Access and Integration
ICEIS Matthias Assel

11. ViroLab Data Access Control
ICEIS Matthias Assel

12. Conclusion
Collaborative working environments foster cross-organisational data exchange and communication
Most existing systems do not consider the aspects of dynamicity and flexibility well
Presented solutions show two different approaches for collaborative data
management and sharing
Future developments should also focus on
- Resource and service/application virtualisation
- Intelligent searching and recovering capabilities
- Context sensitive data access
- Reliable tools for monitoring user activities
- Pricing and Accounting models
ICEIS Matthias Assel

13. Where to find more information?
ICEIS Matthias Assel

14. Thank you for your attention
ICEIS Matthias Assel