Instrument monitoring, data sharing, and archiving using Common Instrument Middleware Architecture (CIMA)

The Common Instrument Middleware Architecture (CIMA) aims at Grid-enabling a wide range of scientific instruments and sensors to enable easy access to and sharing and storage of data produced by these instruments and sensors. This paper describes the implementation of CIMA applied to the field of single-crystal X-ray crystallography. To allow the researchers to easily view the current and past data streams from the instruments or sensors in a laboratory, a crystallography portal and associated portlets were developed for this application. The CIMA-based crystallography system provides an opportunity for anyone with Web access to observe and use crystallographic and other data from laboratories that previously had only limited access.