Network Services and Their Compositions for Network Science Applications

Abstract

Network science is moving more and more to computing dynamics on networks (so-called contagion processes), in addition to computing structural network features (e.g., key players) and other parameters. Generalized contagion processes impose additional data storage and processing demands that include more generic and versatile manipulations of networked data that can be highly attributed. In this work, we describe a new network services and workflow system called MARS that supports structural network analyses and generalized network dynamics analyses. It is accessible through the internet and can serve multiple simultaneous users and software applications. In addition to managing various types of digital objects, MARS provides services that enable applications (and UIs) to add, interrogate, query, analyze, and process data. We focus on several network services and workflows of MARS. We also provide a case study using a web-based application that MARS supports, and several performance evaluations of scalability and work loads. We find that MARS efficiently processes networks of hundreds of millions of edges from many hundreds of simultaneous users.