Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.1

Grid Portals

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.2

Grid Portal

• “A web-based application server enhanced with the necessary software to communicate to grid services and resources”

• “Provides application scientist a customized view of software and hardware resources from a web browser” [1]

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.3From a paper “GridSphere: A Portal Framework For Building Collaborations” by J. Novotny, M. Russell, and O. Wehrens

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.4

Grid Portals• Uses a Web browser interface

– Can use from anywhere.

• Hides details of Grid middleware– Good!!

• Provides– Access to grid information– Access to grid services– Automated execution of applications/jobs– Workflow management– File management– Single sign-on to grid resources

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.5

Access to Grid Services

• Security Services– management of certificates– access to virtual organization (people)

• Remote File Management– access to files and directories– moving files

• Remote job management– job submission– workflow management

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.6

Access to Information

• Portals also provide access to information -- anything related to tasks at hand, including communication with virtual organization.

• In fact some portals started simply as informational portals in the same vein as web portals such as yahoo.

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.7

Grid Portal History

Several portal “toolkits” developed since mid-1990’s.

Examples

• The Grid Portal Development kit (GPDK) (not now supported)

• NPACI Grid Portal Toolkit (Gridport) (National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure)

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Application-Based Portals

• Portals often specialized to a particular application.– for example, grid portal for high energy

physics.

• Portal toolkits give ability to taylor portal to application or user.

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.9

MPI program

Starting job

From a paper”Building GridPortals: The NPACI Grid Portal Toolkit” by M. P. Thomas and J. R. Boisseau.

NPACI Hotpage Grid portal(based upon GridPort)

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.10Adapted from slides “The NCSA Alliance Portal and the Open Grid Computing Environment Project” by D. Gannon, G. Fox, B. Plale, M. Pierce, M. Thomas, C. Severance, G. von Lazewski, and J. Alameda.

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.11

DOE Fusion Grid Portal

Adapted from slides “Reuseable Grid Portral Components” by M Thomas.

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.12

Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD)

Adapted from slides “Reuseable Grid Portral Components” by M Thomas.

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NEES – www.neesgrid.org

• George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation– Large Installations of physical equipment for

earthquake experiments and simulations– Part of the award is to make equipment available

for remote collaborators

• Focus is on collaboration and experimental equipment sharing in addition to access to computation

From slides “The NCSA Alliance Portal and the Open Grid Computing Environment Project” by D. Gannon, G. Fox, B. Plale, M. Pierce, M. Thomas, C. Severance, G. von Lazewski, and J. Alameda.

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.14

Network for Earthquake Engineering and Simulation (NEESGrid)

Adapted from slides “Reuseable Grid Portral Components” by M Thomas.

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A nice portal for the UofA would make a great master’s project!

Portal development tools are critical for the further adoption

of grid computing.

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Portal Implementation

• Should be flexible, meet grid industry standards, be able to be extended using parts developed by others.

• General approach currently is to use “software components” called portlets.

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Software Component

• Object defined by precise public interface and includes a set of standard behaviors.

• Software components contained in a framework.

• Components follow a set of rules to interoperate.

• Installation of components should be easily done.

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Portals with Portlets

• Portal server consists of portlets

• Each portlet provides certain functionality and a window within the portal.

• Each portlet can be associated with a particular grid service

• User can have any number of portlets as he/she wishes (will be associated with user’s persistent context).

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Grid Portlets• Portlets provided for

– Management of user proxy certificates– Remote file Management via Grid FTP– News/Message systems

• for collaborations– Grid Event/Logging service– Access to OGSA services – Access to directory services– Specialized Application Factory access

• Distributed applications• Workflow

– Access to Metadata Index tools• User searchable index

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Portal Server

MyProxyServer

MetadataDirectoryService(s)

Directory& indexServices

ApplicationFactoryServices

Messagingand group

collaboration

Event andlogging

Services

Portal Server

Adapted from slides “The NCSA Alliance Portal and the Open Grid Computing Environment Project” by D. Gannon, G. Fox, B. Plale, M. Pierce, M. Thomas, C. Severance, G. von Lazewski, and J. Alameda.

Grid Computing, B. Wilkinson, 2004 11a.21

Portlet Approach to Grid Services

Portal Server

MyProxyServer

MetadataDirectoryService(s)

Directory& indexServices

ApplicationFactoryServices

Messagingand group

collaboration

Event andlogging

Services

Portlet1

Portlet2

Portlet3

Portlet4

Portlet5

Portlet6

Adapted from slides “The NCSA Alliance Portal and the Open Grid Computing Environment Project” by D. Gannon, G. Fox, B. Plale, M. Pierce, M. Thomas, C. Severance, G. von Lazewski, and J. Alameda.

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A Pane and portlet

ProxyManagerPortlet

The currentVisible pane

Adapted from slides “The NCSA Alliance Portal and the Open Grid Computing Environment Project” by D. Gannon, G. Fox, B. Plale, M. Pierce, M. Thomas, C. Severance, G. von Lazewski, and J. Alameda.

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Advantages of Portlet Approach• Easy to add new grid services and

reconfigure user’s view (context)

• Different software developers can provide portals to be plugged into portal– Many parties developing portal and portlet tools

-- Jetspeed (Apache), Websphere (IBM), GridSphere, …

• Portal/portlet standard called JSR 168 emerging (portlet Java Specification Request open standard).

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More Information

• JSR 168 Portlet specification http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/review/jsr168

• GridLab, The GridSphere Portalhttp://www.gridsphere.org/gridsphere/gridsphere

• Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Grid (NEESGrid)

http://www.neesgrid.org