ARCHER Project

Australian ResearCH Enabling EnviRonment (ARCHER) Project

The ARCHER project was completed in October 2008, and produced dedicated task forces for a number of NCRIS priority research areas. The objective of these task forces was to analyse e-Research data and information management needs and requirements, taking special note of existing IT services available and applicable to each research area. Adapting the generic DART middleware/software tools to suit each research area, these dedicated task forces further developed the tools to suit the needs of each discipline and, where possible, built and incorporated customised research portals. Part of the ARCHER project methodology was to productionise the software tools created during the DART project through operational testing, usability and reliability trials, and produce robust industrial-strength software tools.

The ARCHER project also produced a number of open-source tools including: XDMS, the ARCHER Collaborative Workspace, ARCHER Data Services, Hermes and DIMSIM/CIMA.

In addition, the ARCHER assisted with the creation of TARDIS, a project designed to facilitate the sharing and archiving of raw Crystallography diffractometer data.