What is the EGI Applications Database

The EGI Applications Database (AppDB) is service which stores and provides information about

• software solutions in the form of native software products, virtual appliances, and containers,
• the programmers and scientists involved, and
• publications derived from the registered solutions

Reusing software products registered in the AppDB means that scientists and developers may find a solution that can be directly utilized on the European Grid & Cloud Infrastructures without reinventing the wheel. This way, scientists can spend less or even no time developing, porting or even using a software solution to the Distributed Computing Infrastructures (DCIs). AppDB, thus, aims to avoid duplication of effort across the DCI communities, and to inspire scientists less familiar with DCI programming and usage.

Although the AppDB started out as a software registry, it has evolved throughout the years to encompass multiple components which provide added value, such as

• the VMOps Dashboard which enables users to deploy and manage Virtual Machines on the EGI Cloud infrastructure
• the Information System which provides site administrators and monitoring tools with aggregated and correlated information about the state of the infrastructure
• the OAI-PMH interface which provides third party tools with harvestable software metadata
• the VMCaster which allows site administrators and VO managers to manage and distribute endorsed collections of Virtual Appliance images
• the Community Repository where users can upload and manage versioned source and binary artifacts for their solutions, though the AppDB portal’s Software Marketplace
• the portal REST API and the web gadget, which may be used by service providers for integration

The EGI Applications Database is open to every scientist, interested in publishing and sharing their software solution. An EGI-CheckIn account is necessary order to be able to take advantage of the authenticated, write-enabled features of the AppDB service and more specificly to register a software product or virtual appliance.

For any inquiry you may have, please do not hesitate to contact us.