Bridging the Virtual Observatory and the GRID with the query element

Abstract

The current generation of Grid infrastructures designed for production activity is strongly computing oriented and tuned on the needs of applications that requires intensive computations. Problems arise when trying to use such Grids to satisfy the sharing of data-oriented and service-oriented resources as happens in the IVOA community. We have designed, developed and implemented a Grid query element to access data source from an existing production Grid environment. We also enhanced the Grid middleware model (collective resources and sites) to manage Data Sources extending the Grid semantic. The query element and the modified grid Information System are able to connect the Grid environment to Virtual Observatory resources. A specialized query element is designed to work as Virtual Observatory resource in the Grid so than an Astronomer can access Virtual Observatory data using the IVOA standards.