Active Ontology: An Information Integration Approach for Dynamic Information Sources

In this paper we describe an ontology-based information integration approach that is suitable for highly dynamic distributed information sources, such as those available in Grid systems. The main challenges addressed are: 1) information changes frequently and information requests have to be answered quickly in order to provide up-to-date information; and 2) the most suitable information sources have to be selected from a set of different distributed ones that can provide the information needed. To deal with the first challenge we use an information cache that works with an update-on-demand policy. To deal with the second we add an information source selection step to the usual architecture used for ontology-based information integration. To illustrate our approach, we have developed an information service that aggregates metadata available in hundreds of information services of the EGEE Grid infrastructure

Samba Openldap Performance in a Simulated Environment

The Information Technology world is developing so fast and it is been reported that Open Source tools will eventually take over proprietary tools in no to distant future. The Open Source Community is integrating its products with that of the proprietary ones and the integration of Windows machines into Linux network is evident of such practices. The purpose of this project is to implement Samba with OpenLDAP in a simulated environment. This implementation is conducted within a virtual environment by simulating the setup of Linux and Windows Operating systems by reducing physical setup of machines. Samba will act as an interface between Linux and Windows, files will be accessible to both server and client. OpenLDAP stores the user accounts and configuration files. A performance test carried out on Samba determining effect on CPU power and Memory usage shows a decrease in the CPU power and an increase in Memory usage

Samba Openldap: An Evolution And Insight

Directory services facilitate access to information organized under a variety of frameworks and applications. The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is a promising technology that provides access to directory information using a data structure similar to that of the X.500 protocol. IBM Tivoli, Novell, Sun, Oracle, Microsoft, and many other vendor features LDAP-based implementations. The technology’s increasing popularity is due both to its flexibility and its compatibility with existing applications. A directory service is a searchable database repository that lets authorized users and services find information related to people, computers, network devices, and applications. Given the increasing need for information — particularly over the Internet — directory popularity has grown over the last decade and is now a common choice for distributed applications. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) accommodates the need of high level of security, single sign-on, and centralized user management. This protocol offers security services and integrated directory with capability of storage management user information in a directory. Therefore at the same time the user can determine application, service, server to be accessed, and user privileges. It is necessary to realize files sharing between different operating systems in local area network. Samba software package, as the bridge across Windows and Linux, can help us resolve the problem. In this paper, we try to explore previous literature on this topic and also consider current authors work then come out with our views on the subject matter of discussion based on our understanding

An ActOn-based Semantic Information Service for EGEE

We describe a semantic information service that aggregates metadata from a large number of information sources of a large-scale Grid infrastructure. It uses an ontology-based information integration architecture (ActOn) suitable for the highly dynamic distributed information sources available in Grid systems, where information changes frequently and where the information of distributed sources has to be aggregated in order to solve complex queries. These two challenges are addressed by a Metadata Cache that works with an update-on-demand policy and by an information source selection module that selects the most suitable source at a given point in time. We have evaluated the quality of this information service, and compared it with other similar services from the EGEE production testbed, with promising results

IPv6 Network Mobility

Network Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting has been used since before the days of the Internet as we know it today. Authentication asks the question, “Who or what are you?” Authorization asks, “What are you allowed to do?” And fi nally, accounting wants to know, “What did you do?” These fundamental security building blocks are being used in expanded ways today. The fi rst part of this two-part series focused on the overall concepts of AAA, the elements involved in AAA communications, and highlevel approaches to achieving specifi c AAA goals. It was published in IPJ Volume 10, No. 1[0]. This second part of the series discusses the protocols involved, specifi c applications of AAA, and considerations for the future of AAA

From access and integration to mining of secure genomic data sets across the grid

The UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) funded BRIDGES project (Biomedical Research Informatics Delivered by Grid Enabled Services) has developed a Grid infrastructure to support cardiovascular research. This includes the provision of a compute Grid and a data Grid infrastructure with security at its heart. In this paper we focus on the BRIDGES data Grid. A primary aim of the BRIDGES data Grid is to help control the complexity in access to and integration of a myriad of genomic data sets through simple Grid based tools. We outline these tools, how they are delivered to the end user scientists. We also describe how these tools are to be extended in the BBSRC funded Grid Enabled Microarray Expression Profile Search (GEMEPS) to support a richer vocabulary of search capabilities to support mining of microarray data sets. As with BRIDGES, fine grain Grid security underpins GEMEPS

Integrating security solutions to support nanoCMOS electronics research

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded Meeting the Design Challenges of nanoCMOS Electronics (nanoCMOS) is developing a research infrastructure for collaborative electronics research across multiple institutions in the UK with especially strong industrial and commercial involvement. Unlike other domains, the electronics industry is driven by the necessity of protecting the intellectual property of the data, designs and software associated with next generation electronics devices and therefore requires fine-grained security. Similarly, the project also demands seamless access to large scale high performance compute resources for atomic scale device simulations and the capability to manage the hundreds of thousands of files and the metadata associated with these simulations. Within this context, the project has explored a wide range of authentication and authorization infrastructures facilitating compute resource access and providing fine-grained security over numerous distributed file stores and files. We conclude that no single security solution meets the needs of the project. This paper describes the experiences of applying X.509-based certificates and public key infrastructures, VOMS, PERMIS, Kerberos and the Internet2 Shibboleth technologies for nanoCMOS security. We outline how we are integrating these solutions to provide a complete end-end security framework meeting the demands of the nanoCMOS electronics domain