Information technology has become an essential ingredient in most of research fields. The variety and amount of data to acquire, process and understand in fact has significantly increased, and the typical desktop is no longer sufficient. Even more, large collaborations are necessary to carry out research, involving complex logistics for handling distributed data collection, analysis and management. It is therefore clear that new approaches (computer architectures, software and methodologies) are needed to enhance the scientific research. eScience encompasses all fields of research and addresses all stages of the research lifecycle, from the management of large scale simulations up to long-term sharing, reusing, and reapplying of the results, data as well as the relevant tools, processes and knowledge. In this talk the experience gained during the Exploring the X-ray Transient and variable Sky FP7 project (http://www.extras-fp7.eu) will be described and discussed.