INDUSTRY

The OGSA-DAI project, a partner in OMII-UK, have released version 3.1 of their database access and integration software. OGSA-DAI is an extensible framework for the access and management of distributed heterogeneous data resources - whether these be databases, files or other types of data - via web services. OGSA-DAI provides a workflow engine for the execution of workflows implementing data access, update, transformation, federation and delivery scenarios. The main features of OGSA-DAI 3.1 include:

• A number of new OGSA-DAI activities for:
  • Advanced SQL joins and and merging of relational data.
  • Dynamic OGSA-DAI data resource creation.
  • Running queries on remote OGSA-DAI servers.
  • Interacting with XML databases, including adding, listing, removing and getting XML documents, creating, listing and removing collections and running XPath, XQuery and XUpdate statements.
  • Splitting and combining lists (contributed by the ADMIRE project).
  • Retrieving physical schema for relational databases (contributed by the NextGrid project).
• A document-based workflow client.
• A data source servlet and data source client.
• Prototype support for pluggable workflow transformation components.
• Prototype support for configurable inter-activity pipes.
• Resources can now be marked as "private" meaning they are hidden from clients and can only be used within sub-workflows.
• An example workflow monitoring plug-in which records events which can be browsed via a JSP page.
• Support for MDS registration in Globus-compliant versions.
• A number of bugs have been fixed, components made more efficient, usable or robust.
• The user doc has been extensively refactored and extended.

OGSA-DAI 3.1 is designed to be backwards compatible with OGSA-DAI 3.0 without the need for recompilation - data resource, activity and presentation layer APIs and service WSDLs remain the same. OGSA-DAI is a free, open source, 100% Java product and is now released under the Apache 2.0 licence. Downloads compatible with Apache Axis 1.2.1, Apache Axis 1.4, Globus 4.0.5, Globus 4.0.8, OMII 3.4.2 and, now, Globus 4.2, are available. To download OGSA-DAI 3.1 visit: www.ogsadai.org.uk/documentation/ogsadai3.1 OGSA-DAI 3.1's user doc is at: www.ogsadai.org.uk/documentation/ogsadai3.1 To find out more about OGSA-DAI visit: www.ogsadai.org.uk The OGSA-DAI project - which involves both EPCC and NeSC - is funded by EPSRC through OMII-UK. For further information, contact the OGSA-DAI team at info@ogsadai.org.uk.