We present GridDB, a data-centric overlay for scientific grid data analysis. In contrast to currently deployed process-centric middleware, GridDB manages data entities rather than processes. GridDB provides a suite of services important to data analysis: a declarative interface, type-checking, interactive query processing, and memoization. We discuss several elements of GridDB: workflow/data model, query language, software architecture and query processing; and a prototype implementation. We validate GridDB by showing its modeling of real-world physics and astronomy analyses, and measurements on our prototype.

We present GridDB, a data-centric overlay for scientific grid data analysis. In contrast to currently deployed process-centric middleware, GridDB manages data entities rather than processes.

By understanding the semantics of workflows and their data, grid middleware can provide data-centric services that are lacking in currently deployed process-centric grid middleware. We describe GridDB, a grid middleware system that provides data-centric services as well as one example service, computational steering.