Computational System Federation through a Common Service Bus
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Abstract
The Integrated Collaborative Environment (ICE) is a federated software framework that aims at connecting disparate systems for the purpose of enhanced productivity in the AFRL community. To meet demands for greater efficiency and better research, ICE acts as a common mediator between numerous optimized services. In order to achieve that goal of federated interconnection, a central system communication channel must be in place. Without such a channel, all sub-systems (both hardware and software) within the architecture require a direct connection, including myriad extraction and translation routines. For n systems in the architecture, one would need (n*(n-1))/2 connections in order for each system to communicate with one another. The sheer volume of programming workload to create such an architecture is unmanageable for most software development teams.
The Common Service Bus (CSB) aims to become the broker of all transactions of ICE parties, with several objectives in mind: to reduce the number of custom interconnections needed, to ensure consistency of data transmission, to foster identity management for all system objects, and finally to enable otherwise self-governed systems to participate in the ICE ecosystem. An implementation case study will be presented with a focus on the creation of a robust RESTful API that provides controlled access to research-dependent data models residing in disparate systems. This case study will detail platform-agnostic connections between CSB and the Hub.
Bio
James Fourman
James Fourman is a software engineer and the Lead Developer for the Integrated Collaborative Environment (ICE), an enterprise scientific toolset for the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). James is responsible for managing the task workload for the other ICE developers, developing and maintaining the Common Service Bus (CSB) on which the ICE platform has at its core, and managing the software development life cycle for deployments of ICE. James received a BS in Computer Engineering from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
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HUBzero Foundation
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