Integrating Web 2.0 technologies with scientific simulation codes for real-time collaboration

This paper motivates how collaborative tools are needed to support modern computational science, using the case study of a distributed team of numerical relativists developing and running codes to model black holes and other astrophysical objects. We describe a summary of previous tools developed within the collaboration, and how they are integrated and used with their simulation codes which are built using the Cactus framework. We also describe new Cactus tools which use the Twitter and Flickr services. These tools are fundamentally integrated with the code base as Cactus modules and provide reliable, real-time information about simulations that can be easily shared across a collaboration.