Towards Implementing Virtual Data Infrastructures – A Case Study With Irods

Abstract

Scientists demand easy-to-use, scalable and flexible infrastructures for sharing,managing and processing their data spread over multiple resources accessiblevia different technologies and interfaces. In our previous work, we developedthe conceptual framework VISPA for addressing these requirements. This paperprovides a case study assessing the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System(iRODS) for implementing the key concepts of VISPA. We found that iRODSis already well suited for handling metadata and sharing data. Although it doesnot directly support provenance information of data and the temporal provisioningof data, basic forms of these capabilities may be provided through itscustomization mechanisms, ie rules and micro-services.

Keywords

• data management
• virtual infrastructures
• metadata handling
• provenance information
• data provisioning