A mosaic of software

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

In this paper we describe a Software Server, a background process that in conjunction with a central repository of lightweight wrapper scripts allows functionality within heterogeneous software to be called in a simple and consistent manner. The key role of the Software Server is to provide a common interface to software functionality in a manner that can be programmed against, in essence re-introducing an API to compiled code. Using the Java rest let framework, we provide a Restful interface consisting of URL endpoints allowing any programming/scripting language capable of accessing URLs to utilize software functionality as a black box. In addition to being widely accessible the Restful interface allows for a secondary role from Software Servers by giving them the ability to turn any traditional desktop software into a cloud based web service. In this paper we describe these Software Servers, the scripts we use to wrap primarily GUI based software, and show how these servers allow software to be called and interconnected into workflows across distributed machines. Finally, quantitative experiments showing the feasibility of the described Software Servers on a number of applications are presented.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2011 7th IEEE International Conference on eScience, eScience 2011
Pages279-286
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011
Event7th IEEE International Conference on eScience, eScience 2011 - Stockholm, Sweden
Duration: Dec 5 2011Dec 8 2011

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2011 7th IEEE International Conference on eScience, eScience 2011

Other

Other7th IEEE International Conference on eScience, eScience 2011
Country/TerritorySweden
CityStockholm
Period12/5/1112/8/11

Keywords

  • cloud computing
  • digital preservation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science (miscellaneous)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A mosaic of software'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this