Virtual organisation in the SIMDAT meteorological activity: a decentralised access control mechanism for distributed data

The EU funded SIMDAT project is aimed at applying generic grid technology for the solution of complex application problems in several representative fields including automotive, aerospace, pharmaceutical and meteorology. To satisfy the requirements of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the WMO Information Systems (WIS), the partners in the meteorology activity within SIMDAT (ECMWF, Deutscher Wetterdienst, the UK Met office, EUMETSAT and Météo-France), have developed grid-enabled software that provides generic distributed access to distributed meteorological data repositories via web-based portals, through a series of nodes organized in a mesh network. However, granting access to such an infrastructure, especially considering its fully distributed nature, is a serious challenge and a risk to the security of the overall grid infrastructure. SIMDAT solves this problem by implementing a security model based on a decentralized fine-grained access control mechanism that federates data providers and security issues using the notion of “trust domains”. In this paper we highlight the main features of the SIMDAT grid application and describe its security model in detail.