1. Overview of the HUBzero Platform
Michael McLennan Senior Research Scientist and Hub Software Architect
Rosen Center for Advanced Computing Purdue University

2. Why Cyberinfrastructure?

3. Cyberinfrastructure = HUB
Online simulation…
…and more!
HUB
Each hub includes the unique HUBzero middleware, which delivers interactive simulation tools via the web. Each hub surrounds its tools with seminars, tutorials, podcasts, and other content. Each hub includes social networking features that let users exchange information, help one another, and form a community.

4. What is a HUB?
Example: nanoHUB.org
Demo: AVI MOV YouTube

5. nanoHUB.org Usage Statistics
105,000 users worldwide
>5,000,000 hits/month
All Top 50 US Engr Schools
14% of all .edu domains 333 International Ed Institutions
233 US K-12 schools

6. Platform for Scientific Collaboration
“YouTube” for simulation and modeling tools
Little bit of social networking:
e.g., Questions & Answers
Web Server
Physical Machine
Maxwell’s
Daemon
Secure
execution
environment
Virtual Machine
Virtual economy for
incentives and
managing resources
Tools powered
by Grid infrastructure
Integrated visualization

7. Cyberinfrastructure for Running Tools
Maxwell’s
Daemon
Middleware
tool session cluster
Physical Machine
Virtual Machine
Content Database
0101
1011
1001
nanowire job
nanowire job
nanowire job
This shows the unique architecture that allows HUBzero to deliver simulation tools via the Web. When you click “Launch tool,” the web server passes a request to the Maxwell’s Daemon Middleware, which finds the least-loaded machine on the cluster and starts up a tool session. We use virtual machines for added security, so each tool session runs in its own sandbox, isolated from other users and the outside world. We use Virtual Network Computing (VNC) to export the image of a tool session over the web into your browser. It looks like a simple Java applet running in your browser. The VNC client is actually a Java applet. But the application itself runs back at the tool session cluster, where it has access to much more computing power through the Open Science Grid, the TeraGrid, and local computing resources. Jobs can be dispatched on the Grid, and resulting data can be piped to a local rendering farm which creates images of the data seamlessly.
Rendering Farm
nanoVIS

8. Rappture: Rapid Application Infrastructure=
Works with your favorite programming language
Open Source
Online at
Used by 200 projects and developers
Simulation
Code
Part of the HUBzero middleware is a package called “Rappture,” the “Rapid Application Infrastructure.” If you have a simulator written in C/C++, Fortran, Matlab, or other languages, you can use Rappture to create a graphical user interface for your tool. Simply write an XML description of your simulator detailing the inputs and outputs for your tool--sort of like a web service description. Rappture reads your XML description and generates a graphical user interface automatically. Rappture is open source (see and is being used by more than 200 developers on 180 projects worldwide.
Scientist

9. Cyberinfrastructure for Developing Tools
Developer
Web-based
Publishing
System
Registered
Created
Uploaded
Installed
Approved
Published
End User

10. Hundreds of tools online!

11. Supporting hundreds of projects
Hundreds of Developers
Hundreds of Tool Projects
Registered
Created
Uploaded
Installed
Approved
Published
nanoHUB.org
281 Tool Projects
Year of Development >>

12. Replicate, Support, Sustain
Question & Answer Forum ? ? ?
HUBzero
team

13. Replicate, Support, Sustain
Developers see
tickets on their
“my HUB” page

14. bid points for fulfillment
Wish Lists
Community can vote
on wishes and
bid points for fulfillment

15. Supporting Education Simulation tools: Teaching Materials:
Complete courses
Tutorials and Podcasts
Homework assignments
Simulation tools:
Demonstrations in class
Homework assignments
Class projects

16. Educational Use Is Growing
116 classes
at 97 institutions
in 2009
UC Berkeley is not alone In calendar 2009, there were 116 classes at 97 institutions that used nanoHUB as part of the class. Here are 3 classes at Arizona State University that have used nanoHUB consistently in class throughout the years.
nanoHUB.org Educational Usage

17. Tutorials and Seminars:
Supporting Research
Simulation tools:
Used by theorists
Used by experimentalists
Tutorials and Seminars:
Cutting edge research
Cited in journal articles
Preprints and tech pubs

18. More than 500 citations to resources
Scaling the High-Performance Double-Gate SOI MOSFET down to 32 nm Technology Node with SiO/sub2/-based Gate Stacks
Device Physicist
Enrico Sangiorgi
University of Bologna, Italy
Analysis of Scaling Strategies for Sub-30 nm Double-Gate SOI
N-MOSFETs
Ultra-thin fully-depleted SOI MOSFETs: Special charge properties and coupling effects
Experimentalist
Akiko Ohata
IMEP Minatec, France
Electrical characteristics related to silicon film thickness in advanced FD SOI–MOSFETs

19. Leveraging the Platform
~ $15.5 million of development
NSF Network for Computational Nanotechnology
1995
2002
2009
Mark Lundstrom
Purdue University
…others

20. Hubs ‘Я Us Feb 2007: 1 hub Feb 2008: 5 hubs Feb 2009: 8 hubs
hubzero.org
Feb 2007: 1 hub
Feb 2008: 5 hubs
Feb 2009: 8 hubs
Feb 2010: 21 hubs
Each hub has its own funding stream
HUBzero: an organization with Recharge Center
new

21. HUBzero Consortium Four founding members
hubzero.org
Four founding members
Ongoing development of HUBzero core
Documentation:
Dissemination and support, yearly conference

22. Cyberinfrastructure is changing…
Practice of science
Sharing of information
HUBzero is a very different cyberinfrastructure. It makes tools easy to access, gives them interactive analysis capabilities and integrated visualization, and therefore brings the tools to a much wider user base of educators and experimentalists. HUBzero is increasing the pace of development for tools and other resources, and integrating these resources with scientific literature.
Pace of model development