Common Intrument Middleware Architecture (CIMA)

Category: Stand-alone products — Other products by this author

Project Description

Project resources

• Documentation
• Releases
• Roadmap
• Issue tracker
• Contact address
• Project page

The Common Instrument Middleware Architecture (CIMA) project, supported by the National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative, is aimed at "Grid enabling" instruments as real-time data sources to improve accessibility of instruments and to facilitate their integration into the Grid. CIMA middleware is based on current Grid implementation standards and accessible through platform independent standards such as the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) and the Common Component Architecture (CCA). Emphasis will be placed on supporting a variety of instrument and controller types including creating a small implementation that can be used with tiny wireless controllers such as the Berkeley Mote sensor package as well as embedded PC-104 and VME-based controller systems.   The CIMA implementation will be evaluated in three settings representing a spectrum of shared instrument applications:

• X-ray crystallography at a synchrotron source,
• real-time acquisition of network performance data with embedded monitors, and
• small sensor network nodes based on Berkeley Mote wireless sensors.

The end product will be a consistent and reusable framework for including shared instrument resources in geographically distributed Grids. A primary challenge addressed by this research program is the lack of a generalized approach to instrument middleware that allows existing and new instruments to be integrated into Grid computing environments. Other issues to be explored include extending the accessibility of instruments to new classes of users, use of instruments by software agents, and increasing the longevity, flexibility and durability of software systems for instruments.

See more at CIMA.