Infrastructure for interactivity - decoupled systems on the loose

Digital ecosystems are not "created", they form and evolve wherever their users guide them. Moreover, usage patterns within digital ecosystems are not bound to one particular technology. A computational neurologist, for instance, may move back and forth between laboratory experiments, grid infrastructure for simulation and analysis, collaborative environments and publication platforms. This paper pinpoints an evolution of various ecosystems that is currently ongoing, and discusses technological patterns for mixing and merging infrastructures. In particular it looks at "repositories" as they overarch scientific infrastructure and interactive applications. In an analysis covering a series of experiments, we find an optimal setup in the combination of grid and web technologies through a REST-based interface, which opens up a variety of novel architectural patterns.