DICE Research News

Learning About IRODS: Workshop Registration Opens

The Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) group and CC-IN2P3, the Computing Center of the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (Centre de Calcul de l’Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules) in France, have announced a workshop on iRODS, the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System.

The four-day workshop will be held February 2-5, 2009 at CC-IN2P3 in Lyons, France. Online registration is free and open through the January 10, 2009 deadline. This is a pre-registration form, and due to limited space, accepted registrations will be confirmed by e-mail. Early registration is suggested.

iRODS is advanced open source data grid technology for managing, sharing, publishing, and preserving digital data collections, ranging from personal collections to the largest scales -- petabytes of data with hundreds of millions of files.

Growing out of a decade of user-driven experience with the Storage Resource Broker (SRB) software, core iRODS development is being led by the Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) group at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and the Institute for Neural Computation (INC) at the University of California, San Diego.

The open source iRODS data grid system is growing in popularity, and a number of independent projects such as the CC-IN2P3 in France and others in the U.S. and around the globe are using iRODS and developing code with the goal of extending the open source iRODS system.

Chaired by research engineer Jean-Yves Nief of CC-IN2P3 and Reagan Moore, DICE group director, the upcoming workshop will bring together researchers new to iRODS who want to learn more about iRODS and data grid technology, as well as others already using iRODS in a range different communities.

The workshop will open with presentations from users on applications of iRODS technology. Those interested in presenting should contact Jean-Yves Nief. For examples of how people are applying the versatile iRODS technology see the DICE website.

The workshop will also include a tutorial on an Introduction to the iRODS Data Grid System, and a tutorial on Rules and Micro-services. These two key features of iRODS let users translate their high-level management policies into powerful Rules that automate data management operations. The rules control the execution of the lower-level Micro-services at the distributed servers where data are stored.

On the fourth day there will be parallel sessions to help communities with common interests explore and build collaborations to apply and develop iRODS for their specific needs. Planned community sessions tentatively include Astrophysics, Medical Records, Arts and Humanities, and Preservation Environments.

The core iRODS development by the DICE group in the U.S. is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Additional development of the open source iRODS data grid system is being supported by CC-IN2P3 and a number of other independent projects worldwide.

For more information, see the workshop website.

About IN2P3

The Computing Center of the National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (CC-IN2P3) is part of IN2P3 in Lyon, France, funded by the French government. Established in 1971, IN2P3’s mission is to promote and conduct research in nuclear and high energy physics. It coordinates programs in these areas on behalf of the CNRS and universities, in partnership with CEA. IN2P3 also brings its expertise to other scientific fields, helps solve scientific and technical problems for society, disseminates expertise and technological advances to industry, and participates with universities to educate the next generation of researchers.

About iRODS and DICE

The Data Intensive Cyber Environments (DICE) group leads core development of the open source iRODS Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System. With more than a decade of award-winning research in advanced technologies for managing, sharing, publishing, and preserving digital data, the group is based at the School of Information and Library Science and the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Institute for Neural Computation at the University of California, San Diego. Development of the core iRODS data grid system is funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Archives and Records Administration, with a growing open source iRODS community participating in development worldwide. For more information see http://diceresearch.org.