Scientific data can be exceedingly large and the infrastructure will need to provide support for the transport of large messages. One issue here will be the data translation routines and how they are implemented. If each message must be translated into a generic format before being sent regardless of the receiver's data format needs then it will be difficult to maintain reasonable performance. Data translation should be performed on an as-needed basis and applications should be allowed the means to control the translation if behavior other than the default is desired. Support for legacy software.
Legacy software needs to be integrated with and accesible through any new infrastructure developed.
Application designers will be developing in a variety of languages and on various architectures. They will need support for compilation of their programs to allow easy use of the software infrastructure mechanisms. Java and WWW integration. Many applications and interfaces are being developed using Java and WWW pages, access to the software infrastructure from these applications must be provided. Applications designed to run multithreaded need to be able to use the software infrastructure.