MTA SZTAKI Hungarian Academy of Sciences Grid Computing Course Porto, January Introduction to Grid portals Gergely Sipos

Grids GS EGEE SEEGRID Gilda HunGrid NGS ● Services are more or less standardised ● Standard interfaces ● Standard technologies ● A Grid is a collection of services that can join and leave a community ● They can be accessed using some service clients VO CE GS ● Resource  Grid service

A Grid service Grid service client Sometimes Integrated into another service (e.g. RTF client in GRAM)

Difficulties for end-users Grid services are secure: –You must obtain a certificate from a CA –You must register at a Virtual Organization (Grid services are members of VOs.) –You must generate a short term proxy credential Grid clients are low level tools (to stay generic) –Command line programs –Platform dependent (usually Linux) –Lots and lots of parameters –Output for machine not humans…

Data MgmtSecurity Common Runtime Execution Mgmt Info Services Web Services Components Non-WS Components Pre-WS Authentication Authorization GridFTP Pre-WS Grid Resource Alloc. & Mgmt Pre-WS Monitoring & Discovery C Common Libraries Authentication Authorization Reliable File Transfer Data Access & Integration Grid Resource Allocation & Management Index Java WS Core Community Authorization Replica Location eXtensible IO (XIO) Credential Mgmt Community Scheduling Framework Delegation Services in Globus Toolkit version 4 Data Replication Trigger C WS Core Python WS Core WebMDS Workspace Management Grid Telecontrol Protocol Contrib/ Preview Core Depre- cated

Different services  different clients Service 1 client Service 2 client Service 3 client Service 4 Service 5 client... ?? ?

The solution: Grid portals! THE INTERNE T THE INTERNE T Disks, Processor, … Operating System Middleware components and network protocols, … Grid services Grid service clients Application Grid portal

Grid portals A portal is a web server that –Provides each user with a repository of personal information and data saved from previous sessions. –Is a website that allows users to customize their views of information and tools –Examples Ebay, yahoo, Amazon.com, on-line banks are all portals… A Grid portal is the gateway to –Grid services

Why Do People Build Grid Portals? To Provide Scientists with a way to access tools (services) hosted on a Grid. To make scientific resources available to a community –Data, knowledge bases, directories, storages, computers, applications,… To provide users a way to organize their personal Grid space. To Shield the User community from Grid details

Typical functionalities of a Grid portal User authentication –Web security (e.g. name&psw)  grid security (proxies) Data management –Web protocols (e.g. HTTP)  grid protocols (e.g. GridFTP) Job management –Local resource  distributed resources Visualization –Application input/output/execution progress

A few examples UK NGS portal –Job oriented, Globus GILDA demonstrator –Training environment LEAD –Predicting Severe Storms, workflow-oriented TeraGrid User Portal –Providing users access to the US TeraGrid (Globus) P-GRADE Portal, GEMLCA Portal  Today!

Summery and conclusion Grid portals are gateways to Grid services Intermediate between grid protocols and Web technologies Can support different –Middleware technologies –Grid services –Application fields –Application types YOU have to decide which portal fits best for your needs!

Thank you! Gergely Sipos