Provenance implementation in a scientific simulation environment

Abstract

Many of today's engineering applications for simulations are lacking machanisms to trace the generation of results and the underlying processes. Especially computations conducted in distribued computing environments as Grids are lacking suitable means to keep track of used resources. Trust of engineers in results produced within distribued simulation environments is very limited without this information. This paper will demonstrate how trust and confidence in simulation results could be achived for engineering applications. It will highlight the backgrounds of the application, of provenance recording, the mapping to the application, and finally the implementation of provenance awareness for the application. Additionally it will present examples of analyzing the information stored to be of further use to the engineer. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.