Cloud-based mediation and access of healthcare data in the @neurIST project

Abstract

Managing and sharing data and information related to the understanding of human disease processes represents a huge challenge for medical researchers and clinicians. The European @neurIST project addressed this challenge by developing an advanced service-oriented IT infrastructure for the management of all processes linked to research, diagnosis and treatment development for complex and multi-factorial diseases. The @neurIST infrastructure relies on a service-oriented architecture comprising data services and compute services encompassing data repositories, computational analysis services and information systems handling multi-scale, multi-modal information at distributed sites. The @neurIST data services infrastructure offers tools based on Grid and Cloud technologies for constructing virtual data sources that enable transparent access to and integration of distributed heterogeneous biomedical and clinical data sources. Pre-configured virtual data nodes and a virtual mediation node ensure an easy distribution, hosting and deployment of data services by utilizing latest Cloud computing technologies. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.