MTA SZTAKIHungarian Academy of Sciences

Grid Computing CoursePorto, 22-24 January 2007.

Introduction to Grid portals

Gergely SiposGergely Sipossipos@sztaki.husipos@sztaki.hu

Grids

GSGS

GS

GSGS

GSGS

GSGS

GS

GSGS

GS

GS

GSGS

GSGS

GS

GS

GS

GS

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 serviceclient

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 MgmtSecurityCommonRuntime

Execution Mgmt

Info Services

Web Services

Components

Non-WS Components

Pre-WSAuthenticationAuthorization

GridFTPPre-WS

Grid ResourceAlloc. & Mgmt

Pre-WSMonitoring

& Discovery

C CommonLibraries

AuthenticationAuthorization

ReliableFile

Transfer

Data Access& Integration

Grid ResourceAllocation &

ManagementIndex

Java WS Core

CommunityAuthorization

ReplicaLocation

eXtensibleIO (XIO)

CredentialMgmt

CommunitySchedulingFramework

Delegation

Services in Globus Toolkit version 4

DataReplication

TriggerC

WS Core

Python WS Core

WebMDS

WorkspaceManagement

Grid Telecontrol

Protocol

Contrib/Preview

Core

Depre-cated

www.globus.org

Different services different clients

Service 1client

Service 2client

Service 3client

Service 4

Service 5

client

client

. . .

???

The solution: Grid portals!

THE

INTERNET

THE

INTERNET

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

sipos@sztaki.huwww.lpds.sztaki.hu