PDACS: A Portal for Data Analysis Services for Cosmological Simulations

PDACS (Portal for Data Analysis Services for Cosmological Simulations) is a Web-based analysis portal that provides access to large simulations and large-scale parallel analysis tools to the research community. It provides opportunities to access, transfer, manipulate, search, and record simulation data, as well as to contribute applications and carry out (possibly complex) computational analyses of the data. PDACS also enables wrapping of analysis tools written in a large number of languages within its workflow system, providing a powerful way to carry out multilevel/multistep analyses. The system allows for cross-layer provenance tracking, implementing a transparent method for sharing workflow specifications, as well as a convenient mechanism for checking reproducibility of results generated by the workflows. Users are able to submit their own tools to the system and to share tools with the rest of the community.