Introduction of grid computing application projects at the NASA earth science technology office

In 2003, NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) awarded funding for 20 new investigations in information systems technology development under the Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program. Two of the selected proposals specifically used Grid computing technology in their Earth science applications: (1) Integration of OGC and Grid Technologies for Earth science modeling and applications The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service technologies are developed to provide interoperable access and services of geospatial data while the Grid technology is developed for sharing data, storage, and computational powers of high-end computing facilities within a virtual organization. The built-in OGC geospatial services include subsetting, resampling, georectification, reprojection, reformatting, and visualization. The technology integration will make Grid technology geospatially enabled and compatible with OGC standards and, at the same time, make OGC technology Grid enabled. (2) Grid-BGC: A Grid-computing architecture for terrestrial biogeochemical modeling The objective of the Grid-BGC project creates an end-to-end technological solution for high-end Earth system modeling that will reduce the costs and risks associated with research on the global carbon cycle and its coupling to climate. The system can provide a robust end-to-end processing environment that permits computation at the supercomputer level and addresses the associated demands for massive on-line and near-line input and output data streams.