PNNL-13501 - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Study Control Number: PN99008/1336
Collaborative Problem-Solving Environments
Deborah K. Gracio, Karen L. Schuchardt, Brett T. Didier
Advanced computational techniques are critical to improving our understanding of scientific processes in a
multidisciplinary research environment. The development of collaborative problem-solving environments, which apply
current research and state-of-the-art technology to create a powerful and convenient computing environment, is one key to
transcending current methods of solving complex problems. General-purpose components that enable the construction of
domain-specific collaborative problem-solving environments are being developed on this project.
Project Description
The purpose of this project is to develop general-purpose
infrastructure components that are required to develop
and deploy collaborative problem-solving environments.
Our requirements were derived from work in the areas of
climate change, chemistry, manufacturing engineering,
and subsurface reactive transport. We developed
prototypes of several components this year: resource
information management and discovery, portal services,
and distributed data and meta-data management. In
addition, we developed a conceptual prototype of a
climate change problem-solving environment with an
emphasis on flexible workflow. This project produced
technology that is now being applied to programmatic
work and advanced our ability to develop domain-specific
collaborative problem-solving environments.
Introduction
A collaborative problem-solving environment is a
computational system that provides a complete and
convenient environment for solving problems in a specific
domain. The target problems are increasingly distributed
in nature. Collaborators, often physically remote and
working for different organizations with different
infrastructures, require access to distributed resources
such as supercomputers, instruments, and research data.
A collaborative problem-solving environment must
support this complex work environment in addition to
supplying the domain-specific tools and capabilities.
Constructing such a system is cost prohibitive unless
components that address the basic infrastructure issues are
readily available. The specific aim of this project is to
apply state-of-the-art technologies to create new solutions
for selected infrastructure components, thus enhancing
our ability to develop and deploy collaborative problemsolving
environments.
106 FY 2000 Laboratory Directed Research and Development Annual Report
Another important characteristic of problem-solving
environments is that they must be readily adaptable to
new problems and new solution strategies. The users
require the capability to define and redefine their process
or workflow. We continued our research in this area by
developing a conceptual prototype of a flexible workflow
environment for atmospheric research.
Results and Accomplishments
Two years ago, a collaborative problem-solving
environment was only an idea. Today, it has been
embraced as one of the key capabilities of the Laboratory
in Information Sciences. The research and technologies
being developed by the collaborative problem-solving
environments team are sought out by many of the
research entities in the Laboratory to provide solutions to
aid scientists, decision makers, and policy planners in
their work.
Portal Services
We designed and developed a web-based component for
submission and monitoring of computational jobs. The
design was implemented as a portal service that can be
accessed by applications written in Java, C++, or any
browser supported language. We tested this service by
successfully running computational jobs under a variety
of computing environments including UNIX and Linux
workstations, Linux clusters running the Portable Batch
System, an IBM SP running Maui Scheduler and Load
Leveler, and an Silicon Graphics, Inc. Origin 2000
running the Network Queuing System. The service has
the following features:
• accepts XML job requests over a secure web-based
connection (https)