Tools for collaboration How to share your duck tales…

Outline ► Sharing information  Wiki overview  NTCNP TWiki demo  VDC ► Sharing resources  Grid computing: resources, middleware, applications  OSG & CompBioGrid

Wiki? TWiki? ► What is it?  Wiki = collaborative web environment ► Glossary  TWiki  TWikiSite  TWiki webs  TWiki topics  WikiWord

Demo

Grid Computing from buzzword to reality…

What is Grid Computing? ► “A computational grid is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end computational capabilities” – Ian Foster & Carl Kesselman, 1998 ► “Grid computing is an emerging computing model that provides the ability to perform higher throughput computing by taking advantage of many networked computers to model a virtual computer architecture that is able to distribute process execution across a parallel infrastructure” – Wikipedia ► Grid is a service for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet ► The ultimate goal (dream?) is to turn the global network of computers into one vast computational resource – “Utility Computing”  Reliable  Transparent  Pervasive  Infrastructure and cost

Brief Timeline ► 1965 – Multics ► 1990 – Metacomputing ► 1994 – Beowulf project ► 1997 – The “grid workshop” ► 1998 – Globus ►…►…►…►…

Current Areas of Use ► Computational Domains  High throughput  High performance  High capacity  Combination ► Problem Domains  Astrophysics, nuclear physics  Climate  Economics  Aerospace, automotive  Military  Biology ► Modeling and simulation – the single most common feature…

Grid Middleware ► Provides critical functionality  Security  Access policies  Resource discovery  Resource management  Monitoring ► Key principles  Metadata (data, users, resources)  Agents  Brokers ► Some examples  Globus Toolkit, Sun Grid Engine  Condor-G, LSF, PBS  VDT, CTSS …………

Compute Node Solver API Simulation Worker Messaging Server SonicMQ Java Messaging Service RMI JDBC JMS Local Calls Oracle Database API Database Service Sim Data API File Server Data Service Messaging Backend Simulation Dispatcher LSF Servers Client User Interface Client Services Primary Server RMI Servers JMS Adapters Database API LSF Adapter OS Calls

Grid Computing at UCHC ► What did we have to start with?  Good network infrastructure  Some hardware resources (mostly CCAM)  Some related software technology (VCell back-end) ► Possible strategies:  Develop local grids  Develop enterprise/campus grids  Leverage global grids ► Open Science Grid

Open Science Grid (OSG) ► Open Consortium ► Rich middleware stack (VDT) ► Grid of sites ► Both “production” and “testbed” grids ► Rapidly growing resources; since 2005 inception:  > 6,000 nodes  > 0.5 PB storage  many sites with 10 Gbps or better bandwidth ► Designed to minimize entry effort for both users and resources

OSG “Architecture” ► Three types of entities:  Resource sites (CE and SE)  Virtual organizations (VO)  Support centers ► Simple but flexible workflow  OSG-provided middleware  VO-provided applications  Site-provided policies  Data virtualization

Grid Computing via UCHC ► What do we already have?  A new VO – CompBioGrid ► Membership service (including PKI security) ► Fully tested applications  An OSG support center… ► What are we working on now?  Developing specific software support for VCell  Deploying an OSG CE resource site and a Grid portlet  Other users and collaborators…

Are you ready for the Grid? What makes a good grid application? ► Needs a lot of processing or storage ► Runs on Linux ► Has no commercial components ► Needs little interactivity ► Flexibility to break up the workload  Preferably “embarrassingly parallel”  Adjustable runtimes