"OGSA-DAI is middleware designed to make it easy to access and integrate data in a grid environment. The project involved multiple partners, a complete list of which can be found at the OGSA-DAI Web site, at http://www.ogsadai.org.uk, although the majority of development was carried out at EPCC, Scotland and IBM Hursley Park, England.
"We used the reference OGSA implementation from the Globus Project, Globus Toolkit 3 (GT3). GT3 is a Java hosting framework for grid applications that provides an environment in which a grid application can register its services, maintain its state, and communicate with other applications.
"The catalyst for OGSA-DAI was the need for a middleware layer to provide access to large and essentially static databases for a number of 'Big Science' projects. OGSA-DAI is structured as a toolkit with extension points to allow developers to extend the capabilities to suit their specific needs. An example of this is the database management system, where we currently support relational databases (through JDBC) and XML databases (through XMLDB). However, it is possible for application developers to write their own database support should the need arise..."
