Combining a Virtual Grid Testbed and eLearning Courseware

Kathryn Cassidy, Jason McCandless, Stephen Childs, John Walsh, Brian Coghlan, Declan Dagger

Department of Computer Science, Trinity College, Dublin

Kathryn.Cassidy@cs.tcd.ie

Introduction• Why eLearning ?

– Refresher courses for existing users

– Self-paced learning for new users

– Independent learning for everyone

– Reduced demands on training staff

Introduction• Why eLearning ?

– Refresher courses for existing users

– Self-paced learning for new users

– Independent learning for everyone

– Reduced demands on training staff

• Why integrate an eLearning testbed ?– Practicals driven by eLearning tools

– Self-paced hands-on practicals

– Could grade users from practical work

EL Testbed Requirements• Dedicate resources to guarantee QoS

• Isolate training testbed for security

• Simulate the real infrastructure

• Integrate eLearning & Grid environment

• Make easy to use and configure

• Follow best-practice for eLearning

Our Solution - Overview

Virtualisation• Xen Virtual Machines

• Significantly reduces hardware requirements

• Good performance compared to reference grid install on physical machines

Network Infrastructure• ELGrid machines have same IP

addresses as production machines

• Routing redirects packets to the ELGrid machines as needed

• Firewalling so internal traffic is not accidentally sent to production net

• Identical network config to production Grid: only MAC addresses are different

GridBuilder• VM images for different node types

• Copy-on-write image for each node

• Simple web-based front-end

• Quattor then used to apply the individual configuration

Configuration & Management• Quattor Fabric Management system

• Preconfigured templates for Grid nodes available, e.g. LCG, gLite

• Identical templates used to configure the production and ELGrid sites

• Configuration stored centrally

• Autonomous nodes pull configuration and update themselves

Deployment• Transactional Deployment tool

– Push-button deployment

• Production Grid TransDeploy instance– Pushes Quattor templates, etc, out to the

install servers in each production site

• ELGrid TransDeploy instance– Pushes Quattor templates, etc, out to the

virtual install servers in ELGrid

• Quattor then completes node config

APeLS & ACCT Toolset• Adaptive Personalised eLearning

Service

• Adaptive Course Construction Toolkit

• Web services based

• Personalised courses for each user

• Tracks user progress

How Requirements are Met

APeLS and ACCTFollow eLearning best-practice

GridBuilder, TransDeploy, QuattorMake easy to use and configure

APeLS using GridSiteIntegrate eLearning with Grid environment

Xen, Network Configuration, Quattor, TransDeploy, GridBuilder

Simulate the real infrastructure

Xen, Network ConfigurationIsolate training testbed

Xen, Network Configuration, Quattor, TransDeploy, GridBuilder

Dedicate resources to guarantee QoS

Met byRequirement

Future work• Complete Deployment

– Remaining replica Grid-Ireland sites

– ApeLS and GridSite integration

– Online ELGrid CA/RA (only valid in ELGrid)

• User Evaluation