VL-e PoC: What it is and what it isn’t Jan Just Keijser VL-e P4 Scaling and Validation Team TU Delft Grid Meeting, December 11th, 2008

The VL-e vision (aka “Bob's stoomboot”)

What is the VL-e PoC Environment? (from The Proof-of-Concept Environment (PoC) is the shared, common environment for e-Science of the Virtual Laboratory for e-Science. In the PoC, the different tools and services used by and provided by the project are available, and bound together in a service oriented approach. The PoC covers three distinct areas: A software Distribution, to be installed by any-one in VL-e interested in participating in the PoC A PoC Environment, the ensemble of systems that run the current PoC Distribution The PoC Central Facilities, those systems running the PoC Distribution that are centrally managed by the P4 Scaling and Validation Programme on behalf of the Project

The VL-e PoC R3 Distribution VL-e PoC R3 Contents: Scientific Linux 4 32bit gLite 3.1 Sun Java JDK 1.5.0_16 Plus fsl 4.0gat 1.8.2globus-toolkit graphviz 2.18ibis 1.4itk 3.4 javagat 1.7.1kepler-1.0.0rc1lam lucene 2.3.1MatlabMPI 1.2Mesa3D modules 3.2.3mpitb mricro octave paraview 3.2.1swi-prolog R 2.6.2Rmpi-0.5sesame-client SRB client 3.4.2taverna 1.7.1vlet/vbrowser vtk & 5.0.4weka Contributed packages mono (C#) see for full list

The VL-e PoC Environment Application development NL-Grid production cluster Central mass-storage facilities + SURFnet Initial compute platform Stable, reliable, tested Cert. releases Grid MW & VL-software VL-e Proof of Concept Environment VL-e Rapid Prototyping Environment DAS-2/3, local resources VL-e Certification Environment NL-Grid Fabric Research Cluster Test & Cert. Grid MW & VL-software Compatibility Flexible, test environment Environments Usage Characteristics Virtual Lab. rapid prototyping (interactive simulation) Flexible, ‘unstable’ PoC Release nRelease Candidate n+1 Developers environment is a shared, common environment, where different tools and services are both used and provided by the VL-e community PoC / BigGrid CTBRPE (DAS-3)

The VL-e PoC Central Facility topology

● Rapid Prototyping Environment (DAS-3)  System load is usually low  Users have a single userid + home directory  Some people say it's not a grid, but a Cluster of Clusters ● Proof-of-Concept Environment  Typically high load (90+ %)  Users get access using X509 certificates and are assigned pool accounts.  Pool accounts are unique to each cluster and do not share home directories, not even within a cluster  Group rights are handled using Virtual Organisations and VOMS  No direct user logins allowed  No inbound connectivity (listeners) on worker nodes Differences between RPE and PoC

● Scientific Linux/Centos 4 32bit ● Migration to Centos 5 64bit in 2009 ● Runs gLite grid middleware ● Usually Torque/PBS as the batch system ● Usually not allowed to run software on the cluster headnode ● Runs PoC software and lots of non-PoC software ● Job allocation is based on 1 job per core ● Typically 2GB of RAM per job ● Multicore/MPI jobs not well supported (yet) Typical PoC cluster characteristics

1.VO Software Group area  VO has full control  Must be installed per cluster  Not supported at all by the P4 team or site administrators 2.VL-e 'contrib track' Contributed packages are not part of the regular PoC release cycle Certified only to pass some basic installation tests Not supported by the P4 team, but exclusively by the original contributor Most sites will install contributed packages, but no guarantees See for detailshttp://poc.vl-e.nl/distribution/contrib/ How to get software to run on the PoC

3.Part of the next PoC release  Nirwana/Walhalla/Heaven?  Must pass 'contrib track' first  Must be stable, reliable and tested software  PoC Releases are scheduled every ~9 months  NO major updates possible in between (except critical security fixes) How to get software to run on the PoC

3.Part of the next PoC release  Nirwana/Walhalla/Heaven?  Must pass 'contrib track' first  Must be stable, reliable and tested software  PoC Releases are scheduled every ~9 months  NO major updates possible in between (except critical security fixes) There are some good points:  Eternal glory  Will be installed at all VL-e PoC clusters  Supported by VL-e P4 Scaling and Validation team How to get software to run on the PoC

VL-e User Applications seen on the PoC Infrastructure Data Intensive Science:  DANS (KNAW/KB)  Sciamachy (KNMI)  eNMR (UU) Food Informatics:  Bitterbase web service (Unilever) Medical Diagnosis & Imaging:  fMRI, Vbrowser, Moteur (AMC)  JavaGAT (VUmc) Bio Informatics

Questions?