The Grid Browser: Improving Usability in Service-Oriented Grids by Automatically Generating Clients and Handling Data Transfers

This paper proposes to use a Web browser as a familiar environment for accessing a service-oriented Grid. To relieve the service developer from developing a graphical user interface and a Grid service client and to relieve the service provider from installing and maintaining a Grid portal, we suggest using a Grid Browser instead of a Grid portal. A Grid Browser is a Web browser that renders Web Service Description Language (WSDL) files similarly to HTML files. Surfing to the location of the WSDL description of a Grid service results in the automatic generation of a graphical front end in the Grid Browser which a user can easily fill out to invoke a service or submit a job. Furthermore, data transfers are integrated into the Grid Browser by integrating an implementation of the Flex-SwA architecture, such that data transmission and service invocation can be done efficiently in one step. An implementation of the proposed Grid Browser to improve the usability of a service-oriented Grid is presented. A use case points out the advantages of the Grid Browser.