A Web API Framework for Developing Grid Portals

In this paper we describe a grid problem solving environment we developed for financial applications. We based its development on a portlet framework we have specifically developed and on a set of Web APIs that encapsulate all grid control and computation logic. Even though nowadays grid portals are characterized by various and different features and are implemented in very differing programming languages and technologies, we thought that they have many structural aspects in common. For this reason we decided to design and implement a set of Grid specific Web APIs, that we called GRB WAPI. Through them, a portal developer will not have to deal with grid technical details and will be able to manage a high level design. A portal developer will be able to concentrate on some other aspects that concern presentation, such as portal usability and functionality. We discarded the idea of developing a traditional library in order to free portal developers from a particular implementation technology. Thanks to this choice the portal presentation logic can be implemented in any web technology and can be on a different server