Tools and Services
The EVER-EST e-infrastructure will provide users with a suite of tools and services, that will enable them to:
- Discover, access, assess and process both existing and new heterogeneous Earth Science datasets including the associated information and preserved knowledge held by distributed data centres
- Share data, models, algorithms, scientific results (including traceability of workflows and processes that would facilitate reproducibility of modelling and simulations) and their own experiences within a community or across communities (including those in other domains beyond Earth Science)
- Capture, annotate and store the workflows, processes and results from their research activities
- Work together in a real-time environment that facilitates the sharing of expertise, information and data resources overcoming the limitations of traditional working practices e.g. need for physical meetings or the transfer of large datasets between users
- Ensure the long-term sustainability and preservation of data, models, workflows, tools and services developed by existing communities of practice that can potentially be re-used in the future by other users either for validation of existing research or for new applications.
The EVER-EST VRE Main Gateway will provide a user-friendly interface to access the research e-infrastructure. This Gateway will be a public point of access allowing users to understand the services and functionalities available in the EVER-EST VRE. It will also provide each EVER-EST VRC with its own specific and customised user interface.
The EVER-EST VRE will be built on the results of several FP7 projects which have produced a wealth of innovative and state-of-the-art technologies, systems and tools in key related areas. EVER-EST will leverage previous work on Earth Science data catalogue federation, access, search and retrieval, cloud-based data processing and long-term data preservation.
The EVER-EST Virtual Research Environment will be implemented as a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on loosely coupled services tailored to the requirements of Virtual Research Communities involved. These services can be differentiated as those that are generic and those that are specific to the requirements of the Earth Science domain.