What is Taverna?
Taverna is an open source domain independent Workflow Management System – a suite of tools used to design and execute scientific workflows. Taverna has been created by the myGrid project and funded through the OMII-UK. Taverna has a guaranteed funding till 2014.
The Taverna suite is written in Java and includes the Taverna Engine (used for enacting workflows) that powers both the Taverna Workbench (the desktop client application) and the Taverna Server (which allows remote execution of workflows). Taverna is also available as a Command Line Tool that for a quick execution of workflows from a terminal without the overheads of the GUI.
Taverna allows for the automation of experimental methods through the use of a number of different (local or remote) services from a very diverse set of domains – biology, chemistry and medicine to music, meteorology and social sciences.
Effectively, Taverna allows a scientist with limited computing background and limited technical resources and support to construct highly complex analyses over public and private data and computational resources, all from a standard PC, UNIX box or Apple computer.
See a full list of Taverna’s features or videos of Taverna in action.
The screenshot shown below shows the Taverna Workbench 2.x during the design of a workflow.
