Use Case Number

Init1dbw6.pm8.1

Brief Description

It is commonplace in bioinformatics to string together a number of data and analytical operations in order to produce the desired output.  In order for Cancer Researchers to discover which services can be piped together, it is necessary that the designers of the services expose the appropriate metadata.

Actor(s) for this particular use case

Information Modeler

Pre-condition
The state of the system before the user interacts with it

A service exists that needs to be annotated.

Post condition
The state of the system after the user interacts with it

The service is annotated sufficiently to be discovered and integrated into an analytical pipeline.

Steps to take
The step-by-step description of how users will interact with the system to achieve a specific business goal or function

1. The Information Modeler defines the metadata (inputs, outputs, service functionality, etc.) for the service.
2. The service is deployed and accessible to its users
3. The metadata is published in a way that can be queried upon and consumed by users of the service

Alternate Flow
Things which would prevent the normal flow of the use case

None.

Priority
The priority of implementing the use case: High, Medium or Low

High.

Associated Links
The brief user stories, each describing the user interacts with the system for the one function only of the use case. There would potentially be a number of user stories that make up the use case.

• Init1dbw6 - Support caB2B to integrate services on caGrid
• Support caB2B Services to integrate data on grid

Fit criterion/Acceptance Criterion 
How would actor describe the acceptable usage scenarios for the software or service that meets the actor's requirement?

Sufficient metadata needs to be defined so that the service can be discovered and linked into a workflow.

Use Case Number

Init1dbw6.pm8.2

Brief Description

Once metadata about a service is defined and exposed, it must be queriable by users of the service.  They must, through consuming of the metadata alone, be able to determine which services can act as consumers of the data the service produces, as well as produces of the data the service consumes.  Furthermore, the user must be able to determine that the service is appropriately placed within the workflow.

Actor(s) for this particular use case

Cancer Researcher

Pre-condition
The state of the system before the user interacts with it

Service-level metadata is exposed for a number of services that can be linked via a workflow.

Post condition
The state of the system after the user interacts with it

The Cancer Researcher knows which services can act as inputs to which other services.

Steps to take
The step-by-step description of how users will interact with the system to achieve a specific business goal or function

1. The Cancer Researcher identifies an analytical service that he would like to use.
2. The Cancer Researcher performs a query to identify which services can produce data that can be fed into the analytical service.
3. The Cancer Researcher performs a query to identify which services can accept the data from the selected analytical service.
4. Through the service metadata, the Cancer Researcher can identify which services make sense to pipe data through, and identify any services that are needed for data transformations.

Alternate Flow
Things which would prevent the normal flow of the use case

The query could begin with a dataset or data service, and the Cancer Researcher would be identifying all downstream data and analytical services.

Priority
The priority of implementing the use case: High, Medium or Low

High.

Associated Links
The brief user stories, each describing the user interacts with the system for the one function only of the use case. There would potentially be a number of user stories that make up the use case.

• Init1dbw6 - Support caB2B to integrate services on caGrid
• Support caB2B Services to integrate data on grid

Fit criterion/Acceptance Criterion 
How would actor describe the acceptable usage scenarios for the software or service that meets the actor's requirement? 

The user must be able to identify services based on input/output types, as well as find the appropriate translation services if needed.

Use Case Number

Init1dbw6.pm8.3

Brief Description

When services are chained together into bioinformatic pipelines, it is often desirable to be able to store and then later access intermediate results of queries and analytics.  These can be used to modify the pipeline as needed, or to share intermediate results with other investigators.

Actor(s) for this particular use case

Cancer Researcher

Pre-condition
The state of the system before the user interacts with it

A service that produces data has been identified and is accessible, as well as the mechanism by which intermediate data will be stored.

Post condition
The state of the system after the user interacts with it

The results of the service are available via the intermediate data service.

Steps to take
The step-by-step description of how users will interact with the system to achieve a specific business goal or function

1. The Cancer Researcher discovers and selects a service for storing the intermediate data.
2. The Cancer Researcher instructs the tool or service to store the results in the intermediate data.
3. The Cancer Researcher invokes the service
4. The results are stored in the intermediate data service and are accessible via service calls

Alternate Flow
Things which would prevent the normal flow of the use case

None.

Priority
The priority of implementing the use case: High, Medium or Low

Low.

Associated Links
The brief user stories, each describing the user interacts with the system for the one function only of the use case. There would potentially be a number of user stories that make up the use case.

• Init1dbw6 - Support caB2B to integrate services on caGrid
• Support caB2B Services to integrate data on grid

Fit criterion/Acceptance Criterion 
How would actor describe the acceptable usage scenarios for the software or service that meets the actor's requirement?

Access to the intermediate data must be as seamless as access to any other service, and the data should be secured based on rules that the Cancer Researcher identifies.

Use Case Number

Init1dbw6.pm8.4

Brief Description

Once a user identifies a service workflow of interest, he should be able to share that workflow in a way that makes it easy to encode, share with colleagues, reuse/rerun, modify, and extend.

Actor(s) for this particular use case

Cancer Researcher

Pre-condition
The state of the system before the user interacts with it

A set of services of interest has been identified.

Post condition
The state of the system after the user interacts with it

The service workflow is stored and shared.

Steps to take
The step-by-step description of how users will interact with the system to achieve a specific business goal or function

1. The Cancer Researcher encodes and saves the workflow
2. The Cancer Researcher identifies the other uses that can access the workflow
3. The Cancer Researcher reruns the workflow at a later date
4. The Cancer Researcher modifies the workflow at a later date
5. The Cancer Researcher copies and extends the workflow with additional steps

Alternate Flow
Things which would prevent the normal flow of the use case

The steps listed above can be performed in any order any number of times with the exception that the workflow must be encoded and saved first.

Priority
The priority of implementing the use case: High, Medium or Low

Low.

Associated Links
The brief user stories, each describing the user interacts with the system for the one function only of the use case. There would potentially be a number of user stories that make up the use case.

• Init1dbw6 - Support caB2B to integrate services on caGrid
• Support caB2B Services to integrate data on grid

Fit criterion/Acceptance Criterion 
How would actor describe the acceptable usage scenarios for the software or service that meets the actor's requirement?

The workflow must be accessible in much the same way as any other service.