Web enabling desktop workflow applications

WHIP (Workflows Hosted In Portals) is a project aimed at bridging the gap between eScience portals and desktop-based workflow applications by enabling workflow interactions to be modeled using ubiquitous Web technologies. Specifically, WHIP comprises three main components: a bundling specification providing the framework for aggregating data required by a workflow engine, for example, XML descriptions, executable files, data and provenance information; a native installer which acts as a multiplexor for a number of WHIP-enabled desktop applications and a set of software plug-ins that provide data-bundling mechanisms for client-side workflow applications to aggregate data dependencies and receive them at runtime. WHIP has been integrated with Triana and Taverna and in this paper we provide a use case that describes the incorporation of WHIP into the myExperiment social networking site to provide Web to desktop application communications. The applicability of WHIP, however, is far more broad. WHIP bundles are aggregations of arbitrary application data that can act as a means of providing interoperability between workflow engines and capturing the entire experimental workflow artefact and history