caBIG^® provides two complementary pathways to achieving interoperability. Institutions may "adopt" caBIG^® tools and use those applications to connect to caGrid, or they may "adapt" commercial or in-house developed software to be caBIG^®-compatible. Many institutions pursue both approaches, depending on their specific needs and their existing IT infrastructure.

A number of the NCI-designated Cancer Centers currently connecting to caGrid are working with commercial software vendors to ensure essential components of their IT infrastructure are fully-caBIG^®-compatible. The choice of pathway by a particular institution depends on many factors, including:

• The extent to which existing tools meet the needs of the end users or if additional capabilities are required.
• The receptiveness of end-user researchers to learn new tools and processes, or their desire to continue using familiar tools and workflows.
• The available resources for internal development or customization of existing tools to become caBIG^®-compatible, versus installing existing caBIG^® tools.

caBIG^® has developed Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Software Development Kits (SDKs) that provide detailed instructions about application interfaces, simplifying the process of developing new caBIG^®-compatible software, or modify existing software to become caBIG^®-compatible.

For more information on how you can get connected to caBIG^®, click here.