data link Story: NCSA Software Database First Step to Alliance RIB

NCSA Software Database First Step to Alliance RIB

Information about commercial software packages and public domain and community codes available on NCSA systems is being delivered to users in a different format as of late March 2000. Instead of an HTML-coded table listing the package name, version, and installed platform(s), users can now refer to a database that offers more complete information on one browser screen. They can choose from among a variety of views and several levels of detail.

This change helps NCSA users and in the long-run will assist users of Alliance-allocated systems. The software database is a Phase I implementation that encompasses NCSA software. Phase II will be the development and deployment of an Alliance software database that will include software information from all PACS partner sites that offer computational resources through the Alliance. In Phase II, the software information will migrate to a RIB, which stands for Repository in a Box, a package for setting up and maintaining software repositories. At that time, data from Alliance PACS sites will be added, creating an all-Alliance software information repository.

Users benefit from an accurate and current picture of available software. Such detail helps:

• in proposal development to understand the capabilities in available software
• while developing applications in order to pick the most appropriate existing software
• provide necessary information to integrate the existing software and libraries into user applications.

The database provides contact information for the software coordinators responsible for installation and use. The email and phone numbers give users a way to reach staff when questions arise. The software coordinators are NCSA staff who are specialists in specific areas such as chemistry, computational fluid dynamics, math and statistics, or visualization. They share their expertise with NCSA-allocated users through personal contact, web-based information, help files, and other assorted resources.

A small, cross-center team worked for several months to develop and implement the Phase I implementation. The programming talent is David Altenburg, who worked during the fall to make the Phase-I FileMakerPro database a reality. Altenburg is currently researching and working on RIB interfaces. Sandie Kappes is working with RIB developers to design the software implementation of the RIB and to better understand RIB requirements. Kappes and Altenburg are both part of the NCSA Data, Mining, and Visualization (DMV) division. They were joined by the Scientific Computing Division's Ginny Hudak-David, who serves as the interface between the team, the software coordinators, and the software administrators.

Comments on this Phase I implementation are welcome to make the RIB instantiation more robust.