We introduce the Symphony framework, a software abstraction layer that can sit on top of grid systems. Symphony provides a unified API for grid application developers and offers a graphical user interface for rapid collaborative development and deployment of grid applications and problem solving environments through compositional modeling following the data-flow paradigm. Symphony meta-programs and program components can be distributed, reused and modified. Together with Symphony a new security model is developed that extends existing security architectures to allow for collaboration of grid developers and users in permanent as well as ad-hoc working groups.