• Evans, Ben
• Wyborn, Lesley
• Vote, Josh
• Rankine, Terry
• Fraser, Ryan

Abstract

Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) is a scientific workflow portal that provides geophysicists with access to an integrated environment that exploits eResearch tools and Cloud computing technology. VGL is a collaboration between CSIRO, Geoscience Australia (GA) and National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). VGL provides scientists with easy agent to exploit multiple technologies provided by eResearch and Cloud in a user driven interface. VGL was developed in close collaboration with the geophysics user community, and is now in use within the community.With the exponential increase in data set size, resolution, and coverage, many organisations are now experiencing problems: storing for dynamic access; computational power for processing these; and simple ways to collaborate with the result sets. It is no longer feasible for users to personally handle data transport, sub-selection, processing and storage. The VGL provides a distributed system whereby a user can enter an online virtual laboratory to seamlessly access a dynamically user-defined subset of data that is coupled to online software and compute resources.VGL provides end users with access to an intuitive, user-centered [1] interface, built on the Spatial Information Services Stack [2] and leveraging cloud storage and cloud processing from NCI and Amazon [3,4].Though the workflow portal, the research community has come together, reusing data, simulations, and workflows. Additionally, the patterns and technologies employed are easily repurposed for other use-cases beyond geophysics, for example natural hazards, satellite processing and other areas requiring spatial data discovery and processing.REFERENCES 1. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Human-centred design processes for interactive systems. ISO 13407: 1999 2. Spatial Information Services Stack. Available from http://siss.auscope.org, accessed 30 June 2011 3. Amazon Simple Storage Service.Available from http://aws.amazon.com/s3/, accessed 15 June 2011 4. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Available from http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/, accessed 16 June 2011

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• simulation