There are two aspects of using Taverna with grids: running Taverna workflows on a grid or running workflows that access services and resources on a grid.
See a quick overview of projects that use Taverna and grids.
Running workflows on a grid
If you do want to run Taverna itself on a grid, then it can be installed as an application on a grid node to execute workflows using the Taverna Command Line Tool or the Taverna Server.
Alternatively, the MOTEUR enactor allows Taverna 1.x workflows to be run on an EGEE or Grid 5000 grid.
Including services on a grid in workflows
In order to include a grid service within a Taverna workflow, you need to extend Taverna so that it can talk to the service correctly. Because the way such services are accessed depends upon the type of computational grid where they are run, you need to install a plugin appropriate to that grid.
For example, the External Tools (UseCase) plugin for Taverna allows users to access KnowARC grids for remote computations and usage of grid-based storage elements. The plugin site is http://grid.inb.uni-luebeck.de.
The caGrid plugin allows users to add caGrid services to a workflow. The plugin site for Taverna 1.7.1 is http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/~madduri/taverna/ and for Taverna 2.x is http://www.mygrid.org.uk/taverna/cagrid/.
There is also a JSDL plugin for Taverna 1.7.x that allows you to include jobs submitted via GridSAM as services within a workflow.
Projects integrating grids with Taverna
Various projects have successfully run Taverna workflows on a grid or run workflows that access services on a grid:
- caGrid – open source grid software infrastructure developed by the US NCI caBIG aimed at enabling multi-institutional cancer data sharing and analysis in the US – uses Taverna to link together their resources
- Europe’s leading grid computing project EGEE, piloted Taverna over EGEE gLite services
- European Model for Bioinformatics Research And Community Education (EMBRACE)
- Know-how Sharing Technology Based on ARC Services and Open Standards (KnowARC) developed prototype to use Taverna as direct interface to Grid resources running ARC
- MOTEUR
- Netherlands BioInformatics Centre (NBIC)
- Grids for Industrial Product Development (SIMDAT)
- JSDL plugin for Taverna 1.7.x that allows you to submit services within a workflow to a grid using GridSAM
