AstroGrid-D: Enhancing Astronomic Science with Grid Technology

We present AstroGrid-D, a project bringing together astronomers and experts in Grid technology to enhance astronomic science in many as- pects. First, by sharing currently dispersed resources, scientists can calculate their models in more detail. Second, by developing new mechanisms to e-ciently access and process existing datasets, scien- tiflc problems can be investigated that were until now impossible to solve. Third, by adopting Grid technology large instruments such as robotic telescopes and complex scientiflc work∞ows from data aquisition to analysis can be managed in an integrated manner. In this paper, we present prominent astronomic use cases, discuss requirements on a Grid middleware and present our approach to extend/augment existing mid- dleware to facilitate the improvements mentioned above.