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Abstract

The success of scientific projects increasingly depends on using data analysis tools and data in distributed IT infrastructures. Scientists need to use appropriate data analysis tools and data, extract patterns from data using appropriate computational resources, and interpret the extracted patterns. Data analysis tools and data reside on different machines because the volume of the data often demands specific resources for their storage and processing, and data analysis tools usually require specific computational resources and run-time environments. The data analytics software framework DASF, developed at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (https://www.gfz-potsdam.de) and funded by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association through the Digital Earth project (https://www.digitalearth-hgf.de/), provides a framework for scientists to conduct data analysis in distributed environments. The data analytics software framework DASF supports scientists to conduct data analysis in distributed IT infrastructures by sharing data analysis tools and data. For this purpose, DASF defines a remote procedure call (RPC) messaging protocol that uses a central message broker instance. Scientists can augment their tools and data with this protocol to share them with others. DASF supports many programming languages and platforms since the implementation of the protocol uses WebSockets. It provides two ready-to-use language bindings for the messaging protocol, one for Python and one for the Typescript programming language. In order to share a python method or class, users add an annotation in front of it. In addition, users need to specify the connection parameters of the message broker. The central message broker approach allows the method and the client calling the method to actively establish a connection, which enables using methods deployed behind firewalls. DASF uses Apache Pulsar (https://pulsar.apache.org/) as its underlying message broker. The Typescript bindings are primarily used in conjunction with web frontend components, which are also included in the DASF-Web library. They are designed to attach directly to the data returned by the exposed RPC methods. This supports the development of highly exploratory data analysis tools. DASF also provides a progress reporting API that enables users to monitor long-running remote procedure calls. One application using the framework is the Digital Earth Flood Event Explorer (https://git.geomar.de/digital-earth/flood-event-explorer). The Digital Earth Flood Event Explorer integrates several exploratory data analysis tools and remote procedures deployed at various Helmholtz centers across Germany.