Co-ordination & Harmonisation of Advanced e-Infrastructures
for Research and Education Data Sharing
Research InfrastructuresGrant Agreement n. 306819
Standard-based Interoperability amongst Local, Grid and Cloud Resources Distributed
Worldwide
Prof. Roberto Barbera, University of Catania and INFNe-AGE 2012 – Dubai (UAE), 12-13 December 2012
Outline Introductory considerations
The Catania Science Gateway framework
The CHAIN worldwide interoperability program
The evolution to «social» Science Gateways
Summary and conclusions
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Evolution of distributed computing
Time
MainframeComputing
80’s-90’sCluster
Computing
90’s-00’sGrid
Computing
00’s-10’sCloud
Computing
Cost of hwCost of networks
Power of COTS WAN bandwidth
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The “non-Global” middleware
CNGrid
NKN & Garuda
EUAsiaGrid
SAGrid & SANRENGISELA
Genesis II
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Building and operating Grids is not trivial.
Middleware installation and management
requires a significant overhead w.r.t. normal
system administration and almost no
middleware has clear sustainability plans.
Using Grids is not straightforward
Users have to cope with complex security
procedures, execution scripts, job
description languages, command line based
interfaces and lack of standards.
This makes the learning curve very steep
and keeps non IT-experts away.
The eResearch2020 report(http://www.eresearch2020.eu/eResearch%20Brochure%20EN.pdf)
• Some barriers in the adoption of Grids: Changes on Grids means changes on
applications Time required to adapt usual workflows Lack of structure to support anonymous
access Download and installation of applications Interface Slow to get to compared to other resources Difficult to use in the beginning Time spent to get the application
compiled and running
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Some figures…
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The cloud stack
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A very «cloudy» sky…
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… and difficult choices to make
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The path to technology uptake – Where are we with e-Infrastructures ?
The Rogers “bell-shape” curve - Rogers, E. M. (1962), “Diffusion of Innovations”, Glencoe: Free Press.
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Interoperability – Does this definition apply to e-Infrastructures ?
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to system performance;
According to ISO/IEC 2382-01 (Information Technology Vocabulary, Fundamental Terms), interoperability is "The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units".
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The Catania Science Gateway framework
....... Science
Gatew
ay
App. 1 App. 2 App. N
Embedded Applications AdministratorPower UserBasic User
Users from different
organisations having different
roles and privileges
Standard-based (SAGA) middleware-independent
Grid Engine
Grid/Cloud/Local middleware supported so far 19
AuthN & AuthZ SchemaAuthorisationScience Gateway
GrIDP(“catch-
all”)
IDPCT(“catch-
all”)IDP_y
LDA
P
......
...
1. Register to a Service
2. Sign in
Authentication
Social Networks’ Bridge IdP
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Identity Federations in the world(https://refeds.org)
16 million people worldwide
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The CHAIN Worldwide Interoperability Demo(http://science-gateway.chain-project.eu)
To demonstrate that:
e-Infrastructures can be made interoperable to each other at user application level using standards with the meaning of interoperability given above;
VRC-specific applications can be submitted from anywhere and run everywhere
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The Catania Grid & Cloud Engine
Grid/Cloud Engine
UsersTracking
DB
Science GW Interface
SAGA/JSAGA API
Job EngineData Engine UsersTrack &Monit.
ScienceGW 1
ScienceGW 2
ScienceGW 3
Grid/Cloud/Local MWs
Liferay Portlets
eTokenServer
NewModified New Modified NewModified
CHAIN Demo Contributors
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CHAIN Demo Status(http://science-gateway.chain-project.eu/demo-status)
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CHAIN Demo Status(http://science-gateway.chain-project.eu/demo-status)
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About 1 billion people have accounts on the existing Social Networks (many of the researchers we are targeting with e-Infrastructures are among them)
Web-based social networking accounts for more than 10-15% of the total time spent online in the whole world
Social Networks’ are by far the most used (liked) virtual environments in the world
Some considerations…
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“Social” Science Gateways(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Catania-Science-Gateways/220
075701389624)
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SSO possible through the Social Networks’ Bridge IdP
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A Science Gateway as a Facebook application…
Uptake of Catania Science Gateways(as of the end of October 2012) Users from 206 Organisations in 44
Countries
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Science Gateways and clouds – The MyCloud service for IaaS/PaaS
Powered by:
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Summary and conclusions e-Infrastructures can be very beneficial platforms for many users,
provided they are really «easy to use» and users are at their centre The Catania Science Gateway framework, with support for Identity
Federations changes the way Grid infrastructures are used, hugely widening their potential user base across continents and organisations, especially non-IT experts and the “citizen scientist”
The adoption of standards (JSR 286, SAGA, SAML, etc.) represents a concrete investment towards sustainability
The CHAIN worldwide interoperability program demonstrated that, through Science Gateways based on standards, users can really access global e-Infrastructures in a seamless and ubiquitous way independently of the underlying middleware (local, grid, cloud)
We propose to use the same approach in CHAIN-REDS to gather distributed resources from all over the region and the world and get a truly global e-Infrastructure, yet respecting local specificities and exploiting competences of all participating organisations
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Thank you !
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