Gateway Science Portal

Collaborative Technologies TutorialARL MSRC

Marlon Pierce and Choonhan YounSchool of Computational Science and Information TechnologyFlorida State University

January 18, 2001

Overview

Review of Activities WebFlow module development Security infrastructure development

Current Work Generic portal for job submission and

management Scientific visualization CSM Portal

Generic Portal Demo

Module Development

ContextManager A more developer-friendly API for

manipulating WebFlow contexts. Developed to support Gateway’s

problem-session-application hierarchy.Charon

Security module for accessing web content with Keberos security.

Security Infrastructure

WebFlow parent and child servers use Kerberos authentication.

Charon provides secure browser access.We’ve implemented secure delegation and

access control between WebFlow parent and child servers.

Child servers run with user’s ID. Unix file permissions protect files. Jobs submitted as user, so no allocation problems.

Security model reviewed with ASC MSRC.

Gateway Architecture

Browser

ORB

HPC Resources,

Mass Storage,

DBs

HTTP

SECIOP

WebFlowServers

ApacheTomcat

PSEORB

ORB

SECIOP

krsh, krcp

Charon

ORB

Installation and Testing

Early release of OSC PSE installed and tested at ASC. Robustness tested with multiple

(simultaneous) users. JSP-based Generic Portal Services

have been installed and tested at ASC.WebFlow middle tier software installed

at ARL.

Generic Portal Development Goals

We concentrate on core services any portal would need.

Code or CTA-specific portals can be built on top of these vanilla services.

Core services: Secure log on. Batch script generation Job submission. Job monitoring. Multiple file transfer.

Assumption: users know their codes but not always different queuing systems and other available resources.

Application Description

XML description of computational resources. Gather all information needed to run codes. We have developed a flexible description for

many applications. We use an XML dialect called XSIL for this.

XSIL (http://www.cacr.edu/XSIL) XML description of scientific data. Simple DTD and powerful Java-XML interface. Can extend it for sophisticated support for

specific codes.

Generic Services

Batch script generation: Infrastructure for multiple queuing systems

developed. We have implemented this for PBS, DQS. Can be easily extended to other queuing

systems.Job submission on remote HPC from desktop.Multiple file uploading/downloading.Job monitor GUI and infrastructure for

checking job status on multiple hosts. PBS currently implemented.

CSM Portal

CTA specific portals can be built on top of generic services.

Christina Beldica (NCSA) and Marlon Pierce (FSU) will develop CSM specific portal.

Initial capability will be support for parameter studies with preexisting input files.

Advanced capability will provide access to pre- and post-processing software.

Will be installed at ARL and ASC.

Scientific Visualization

Long range goal: use WebFlow middle tier software to provide remote visualization.

Current projects are stand-alone: Java3D-based Molecular Viewer for CCM. Java2D and SVG-based viewer and

whiteboard.

Molecular Viewer

Picture shows methylene, silyl anion, and formamide optimized geometries (calculated by GAMESS).

Code allows multiple molecules to be rotated, translated, etc., with outputs saved.

Displays animations of normal modes.Images can be saved as jpegs.

Control Panel

3DGeometry3

3DGeometry2

3DGeometry1

SVG Images

We are using Java2D and Batik from the Apache XML project to generate and display SVG images.

Image is SVG generated by custom data filter and Sun’s Java2D-to-SVG translator (SVGGraphics2D), and displayed with Batik’s viewer.

Data on ploymer concentration provided by Soumya Patnaik, Air Force Research Lab.

SVG Examples

Contact Information

Marlon Pierce: Email: pierceme@asc.hpc.mil Phone: (937) 904-5140

Gateway Web Site:www.gatewayportal.org

Portal Screen Shots

Collab. Tech. TutorialARLJanuary 18, 2001

Portal Tool Bar

Runs locally on client’s desktop. Various components written as applets, so

we can switch easily to a completely downloadable version. Toolbar would be in a frame in browser window.

Also shown: file browser and job monitor applets. File browser allows you to view local (right hand side) and remote (left hand side) files.

Main Portal Page

Main frame identifies three tracks. “Code Selection” for starting a new

problem. “Problem Archive” for reviewing, editing

old problems. “Portal Administration” for administrators

to add/modify/delete information on applications and host machines (edits our application description xml file).

Code Selection Page

Displays available applications and platforms.

Display is dynamically generated from the Application Description XML data record.

Job Script Input

JSP is used to create forms based on information about codes (where is executable? How does code handle I/O?) in Application Description xml file.

Input from this page is used to create a job script for the selected platform’s queuing system.

Not shown: user can review and edit generated script.

Problem Archive

User can go back to old problems and edit them. Submit to new host. Change script parameters such as number

of nodes and so on.All problem sessions are archived, so

editing a problem creates two sessions (the old one and the new, modified one).

Administrator Interface

Portal administrators can add applications and host machines.

“Wizard” can verify that the admin provided the correct information (did not mistype path to executable, for example).

Example: Adding a host

This page shows the forms the admin would fill out to add a new host machine for a particular application (like Gaussian) to the portal.

Note this isn’t for installing applications themselves. It just makes them available to portal users by updating the XML data record.