| Affiliation: | (1) Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Medical Informatics,Yale University School of Medicine, PO Box 208009, New Haven, CT 06520, USA;(2) Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, Hong Kong;(3) Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, PO Box 208005, New Haven, CT 06520, USA |
| Abstract: | Background Very often genome-wide data analysis requires the interoperation of multiple databases and analytic tools. A large number of genome databases and bioinformatics applications are available through the web, but it is difficult to automate interoperation because: 1) the platforms on which the applications run are heterogeneous, 2) their web interface is not machine-friendly, 3) they use a non-standard format for data input and output, 4) they do not exploit standards to define application interface and message exchange, and 5) existing protocols for remote messaging are often not firewall-friendly. To overcome these issues, web services have emerged as a standard XML-based model for message exchange between heterogeneous applications. Web services engines have been developed to manage the configuration and execution of a web services workflow. |
