Through the development of advanced middleware, Grid computing has evolved to a mature technology in which scientists and researchers can leverage to gain knowledge that was previously unobtainable in a wide variety of scientific domains. However the ability for new scientists to become involved with Grid computing has become increasingly challenging due to its complex nature. This high entry barrier in turn limits the use of Grid computing and advanced cyberinfrastructure as it is unable to trickle down to a more general scientific user group. For example, absence of developer teams in smaller research projects requires the scientist to become an expert in Grid computing themselves. In a typical Grid environment there are obstacles that need to be dealt with such as task management, job scheduling, resource monitoring, and organization management which can overwhelm a domain scientist. Many of these utilities could be abstracted to simplify the scientific user's experience and enable them to perform their research in a more efficient and productive environment. Our solution is Cyberaide Shell, an advanced but simple to use system shell which provides access to the powerful cyberinfrastructure available today [1]. We abstract resources, tasks, and application management tools through a scriptable command line interface. Through a service integration mechanism, the shell's functionality is exposed to a wide variety of frameworks and programming languages to allow for the scientist to leverage the power of Grid computing within their own applications. Design Conclusion Cyberaide Shell Andrew J. Younge, Xi He, Fugang Wang, and Gregor von Laszewski Rochester Institute of Technology, 102 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY High-level Components Architectural Model References The Cyberaide Shell contains four high-level design components that make it unique when compared with any other current technology. The four components are cyberinfrastructure deployments, command line interpreters, object management systems and services. The design of Cyberaide Shell contains components to enable access to a variety of new cyberinfrastructure, Grid, and Cloud toolkits and services. We have designed an abstraction framework that will make it possible to integrate these and other backends for future cyberinfrastructure needs. Users and high-level applications interface with Cyberaide Shell through its standardized command line interface (CLI). This interface allows users to have an easy way to manage jobs, resources, and users. As another component to Cyberaide Shell, we provide within our shell a new concept that we term Literate Semantic Objects (LSO), which is used as part of the internal design of the Cyberaide Shell. These objects are semantic, as an identifier can easily specify them, but the way an operation is applied to these objects depends on the attributes at runtime. In Cyberaide Shell, all advanced functionality is exposed as a service. This enables other computing frameworks to easily access our shell through independent entry point via another tool or even another programming language. Based on the high-level design goals we want to interact with the Cyberaide Shell in a variety of ways. To support this, we follow a layered architectural service and component based design where different services interact with each other in predefined channels. The architectural layers consist of a resource layer, a shell service layer, a language layer and a user layer. [1] I. Foster, “The anatomy of the Grid: Enabling scalable virtual organizations,” International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 200–222, August [Online]. Available: [2] I. Foster and C. Kesselman, “Globus: A Metacomputing Infrastructure Toolkit,” International Journal of Supercom- puter Applications, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 115–128, 1997, ftp://ftp.globus.org/pub/globus/papers/globus.pdf. [3] F. Berman, “From TeraGrid to knowledge grid,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 44, no. 11, pp. 27–28, The current project state has a functioning Cyberaide Shell prototype with the main components in place. The command line interface is implemented using the Apache CLI module to easily extend the shell environment unlike any before. Task management and job execution is currently supported through the SSH and Globus Toolkit [2] resources with integration with the TeraGrid [3]. The shell is extended through a secure Web service platform using Apache CXF where there are clients implemented in Java, C#, Python, Ruby, and Matlab for scientists to embed within their own applications. Additional features such as additional language bindings, workflow commands, and cyberinfrastructure frameworks are currently under development. The current prototype of Cyberaide Shell supports two resource types for remote job execution, performed by the submit and execution commands. The first resource type is using the Globus Toolkit [2] to access the TeraGrid [3]. Login is managed through MyProxy, a x509 credential management service that works with the Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI). Job submission and monitoring is performed by the globusrun-ws command, which uses the WS-GRAM protocol to submit jobs to a variety of batch queuing systems, such as Condor or PBS. The other job execution resource is through SSH. The SSH extension logs into a remote computer and spawns off a job as a new process. Monitoring the status and getting the results are done by separate login attempts as requested by the system. Cyberaide Shell was created to help overcome the chal-lenges scientists face when using advanced cyberinfrastruc- ture in today’s complex computing environment. Cyberaide Shell overcomes the challenges outlined in this paper through a variety of novel concepts. This includes the definition and use of Literate Semantic Objects for dynamic data manage- ment, complex interaction with TeraGrid resources to leverage advanced cyberinfrastructure, and a new CLI that is familiar to most users yet easily extendible by advanced developers. A working prototype has been created that outlines the potential of Cyberaide Shell and proves the plausibility of our design. Advanced but simple to use tools are needed to further enhance the usability of Grid computing for application users. This may lower the entry barrier to Grid computing like never before. If this enhanced usability is created, it could cause an explosion in the scientific community by making Grid computing practical to a larger user group. Introduction Implementation Example