Bring integrated GIS data and modeling capabilities into HUBzero platform

The rapid advancement in the collection of environmental data, geospatial analysis and modeling software calls for new GIS-enabled cyberinfrastructure (CI) capable of support large scale integrated data and modeling activities. Although the HUBzero platform is gaining popularity as a portal development framework for many science and engineering communities, it has limited success in earth and environmental science domains, mainly due to its lack of native support for large geospatial data management and GIS functionalities in the Rappture toolkit. In this paper, we describe our initial work on bringing integrated GIS data and modeling capabilities into the HUBzero platform. We describe the overall architecture of our CI solution which is scalable, extensible and portable to other gateway framework as well. Two prototype applications are presented as a proof-of-concept. Coupling the scalable GIS capabilities with a wealth of tools for user participation and community building on the HUBzero platform, we hope to help new science communities in utilizing this platform.