Execution Environment Providers

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The Environment Provider Framework is created to provide bindings for the Execution Engine to be able to locate needed resources as well as permanent storage facilities in the environment it operates on. Even though it was initially conceived and implemented in the context of the Execution Engine, it can easily be used by any other component that wants to utilize it. The two main providers identified and used are the Information Provider and the Storage Provider and they are used by the Information System and the Storage System component respectively.

In essence what an Environm,ent Provider is, is a technology specific implementation of a generic interface that provides for basin interactions one may want to perform either on a Directory Service-like component (Information System), or a persistent global storage (Storage System). The techn0ology specific implementation of the provider is defined at runtime and loaded based on a qualified name rather than as a compile time dependency. This allows the components using the Provider Framework to become extremely versatile and be able to operate on a large number of infrastructures regardless of the enabling technology. The currently available implementations of these providers are based on the following technologies:

  • local - Information and data is stored in the local filesystem and is only available in other components running in the same host. This provider is mainly used during development time as it is not well fitted for the distributed environment the engine targets
  • ftp - Information and data is stored in a configurable ftp location as files and are retrieve from there or every interaction. This approach has the disadvantage that synchronization policies need to be implemented internally by the provider.
  • gCube - Information and data are managed using the respective gCube Information System and Content Management System.

Information System

The Information System abstraction over the respective Environment provider is mainly a gateway through which the correct provider implementation initially configured is located and utilized. The Resource Model stored through this is currently a simplified version of the mopdel that is in design.

Storage System

The Storage System abstraction over the respective Environment Provider is mainly a gateway through which the correct provider implementation initially configured is located and utilized. The operations the Sotrage System exposes are currenty simple get / put operations at file granularity.