Grappa: Grid access portal for physics

applications

Shava SmallenExtreme! Computing Laboratory

Department of PhysicsIndiana University

Outline

• GriPhyN • Grappa

– XCAT Science Portal project– Demo

• Future Directions– Virtual Data Browser

GriPhyN: Grid Physics Network

• Many many participating people and institutions

• Targets data-intensive applications – ATLAS, CMS, LIGO, and SDSS– 90% of data is derived

• Provide a set of tools for collaborative data analysis– Virtual data - transparency with respect

to location and materialization

Simplified View

storage

Planner

Executor

Catalog ServicesInformation

Services

Policy/Security

MonitoringReplica

Management

Reliable TransferService

GriPhyN/GridServices

Resources

AthenaApplicationsApp1 App2

storagestorage

Virtual Data Catalogs

DataX

orig

DataX

orig

Indiana

DataX

copy

1

DataX

copy

1

Boston

DataX

copy

2

DataX

copy

2

Oklahoma

Replica Catalog

Metadata Catalog

Higgs particle, proton center of mass, etc

Transparency with respect to location

Transparency with respect to materialization

Derived Metadata Catalog

Derived Data Catalog

TransformationCatalog

Random seed, number of events

Athena version, pythia, atlfast, application model, etc.

Virtual Data Language

Motivation for Grappa

• Lots of GriPhyN/Grid services• Requires a good deal of

expertise – more than what many users want to know

• Common approach is a Grid portal

• Provide a portal interface by which physicists can launch and manage applications and data over the Grid

XCAT Science Portal

• Framework for building personal science portals

• A science portal is an application-specific Grid portal

• Active notebook– HTML pages to describe the features of

the notebook and how to use it– HTML forms which can be used to

launch parameterizable scripts (transformation)

– Parameters stored in a sub-notebook (derivation)

Scripts

• Very flexible• Jython - access to Java classes

– Globus Java CoG kit– XCAT – XMESSAGES

• Not every user has to write scripts • Notebooks can be shared among

users– Import/export capability

Portal Web Server(tomcat server + java servlets)

JythonIntepreter

NotebookDatabase

GSI Authentication

XCAT Science Portal Architecture

User’s Web Browser

Grid

Athena Notebook Demo

Graphical way to submit jobOptions file1. Log in using GSI credential2. Select athena notebook from desktop3. Content pages describing athena and

how to use the notebook4. Resource management via “Add

Resource” and “ Check Resources”5. Submit job options file via “Submit

Athena Job”

a) Stage directoryb) Results directory

6. Monitor simple status of job (i.e., pending, active, done)

BostonUniversity

IUPUI

IndianaUniversity

University of Oklahoma

Indiana University

BNL

Demo

• Available via Pacman under grappa-demo

• Further information and installation instructions available at:

> pacman –fetch –install grappa-demo

http://iuatlas.physics.indiana.edu/grappa

Where next?

• Interface to GriPhyN and other Grid services (i.e., Virtual Data Language, Magda, EDG, etc.)

• Only focused on execution management– (Still can make improvements here)– Centered around notebook abstraction

• Is this an appropriate abstraction for data management too?

GridGrid

Virtual Data Browser• A browser interface which can be used to

search and create virtual data• Functionality analogous to that of a web

browser– Create virtual data (e.g., Netscape composer)– Navigate virtual data (e.g., point n’ click links)– Search virtual data (via search engines – Yong

Zhao – U. of Chicago)– Bookmarks to virtual data (or transformations)– User profile – resource mgmt, credential mgmt,

home

Next step

• Write up design specification for VDB• Probably develop code from scratch

– Jetspeed looks promising– Keep script functionality– Replace notebook database with virtual

data catalogs

• Interface to Virtual Data Language

More Information

• Acknowledgements:– IU Physics

• Rob Gardner, Lisa Ensman, Fred Leurhing

– Extreme Computing Lab – US ATLAS testbed sites

• Grappa web page:

• Email: ssmallen@cs.indiana.edu

http://iuatlas.physics.indiana.edu/grappa