Metadata, ontologies, and information models for grid PSE toolkits based on Web services

A PSE toolkit is a group of technologies within a software architecture through which multiple PSEs can be built for different application domains. The effective use of a PSE toolkit requires the management of the heterogeneity of the involved resources that can include computers, data, network facilities, sensors, and software tools provided by different organizations. A distributed implementations of a PSE toolkit can be envisioned through the exploitation of features and functionalities offered by a service-oriented Grid framework, so obtaining a Grid PSE toolkit based on Web services. This paper presents a metadata model for Grid PSE toolkits based on Web services and the architecture of an information system that exploits the proposed metadata model. These two components contribute to define a general model of metadata management for supporting the design and implementation of problem solving environments on Grids.