COMP3019 Coursework: Overview and Mgrid

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COMP3019 CourseworkOverview and M-grid

• Dr Stephen Crouch
• s.crouch_at_omii.ac.uk
• 26/02/09

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Objectives

• To equip students to drive a lightweight grid
  implementation to solve a problem that can
  benefit from using grid technology.
• To develop an understanding of the basic
  mechanisms used to solve such problems.
• To develop a general architectural and
  operational understanding of typical
  production-level grid software.
• To develop the programming skills required to
  drive typical services on a production-level grid.

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Overview

• Part 1 m-grid
• A lightweight grid to illustrate grid concepts in
  use
• Develop a program, submit it to m-grid with input
  data, collect results
• Part 2 Workflows in OMII
• Install an OMII Client (Linux/Windows)
• Develop a simple workflow using Grimoires
  (service discovery) and GridSAM (job execution)
  APIs

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Coursework Materials

• See
• http//www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/stc/COMP3019/

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• Background

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The Grid - a Reminder

• The grid many definitions!
• Grid computing offers a model for solving
  massive computational problems by making use of
  the unused CPU cycles of large numbers of
  disparate, often desktop, computers treated as a
  virtual cluster embedded in a distributed
  telecommunications infrastructure Wikipedia
• A service for sharing computer power and data
  storage capacity over the Internet. CERN
  (European Organisation for Nuclear Research)
• Two components of grid computing
• Computational/data resource e.g. computational
  cluster, supercomputer, desktop machine
• Infrastructure for externalising that resource to
  others

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The Idea - as a Provider

• Goal I want others to access my resources
  applications
• I want to provide secure controlled access to
• My applications
• Specify who can access which applications
• My computational resources
• I can limit external usage of my resources
• Provides an interface that allows remote users to
  access my resources
• Enable collaboration with other partners

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The Idea - as a User (or Client)

• Goal I want to use other resources
  applications
• Through a network of service providers I can
• Gain access to applications that I do not have
  installed locally
• Use remote machines larger resource with more
  CPU, memory or storage
• Process larger problem sizes
• Transparently switch between different service
  providers
• No exposure to underlying OS, queuing policy,
  disk layout etc.

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• M-grid

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Computational Grids - in General

• Users supply tasks to be performed via client
• Execution nodes contribute processing power
• Coordinator node sends tasks to execution nodes,
  ensuring results returned
• Existing grid tech. sophisticated -gt significant
  complexity
• To what extent can this be reduced?

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Java Applets

• How about Java applets as a program unit?
• Browsers could act as execution nodes
• Security concerns?
• Web browsers execute foreign code
• Java applets executed within a sandbox virtual
  machine
• Stringent security restrictions imposed
• In-built security configuration in browsers
• Applet can only contact originating server
• Risk significantly reduced

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M-grid A Lightweight Grid I

• M-grid
• Execution node Java-applet enabled browser
• Client browser
• Coordinator web server
• Tasks distributed as Applets in web pages
• Execution node browser opens web page on server
• Runs task applet
• Uploads results to server

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M-grid Overview

• Implemented on
• Microsofts IIS (Internet Information Server)
  using ASP
• Apache Tomcat
• Client
• Develops applet class as extension to MGridApplet
  class
• Can run applet locally in appletviewer for
  testing
• Compiles and packages applet with input
  parameters file into a jar file
• Submits jar to web server via JobSubmit web page
• Eventually collects results via ViewJobs web page
• Execution node
• Requests a job via JobRequest page
• Applet submits results from job using
  SubmitResults page
• Security provided by session authentication

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Architecture
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Pre-requisites

• Pre-requisites
• Windows recommended
• JDK 1.5.0_01 1.5.0_14 (not Java 6)
• Browser with 1.5.0 (or above) JDK plugin and
  applets enabled
• Internet Explorer recommended
• If on own Linux machine and need to install a
  Java plugin into Mozilla, go to
  http//plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/java.html
• Linux undergrad machines not suitable execution
  nodes

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Installing your Own Server

• Highly recommended!
• Windows only (Linux wont return results yet)
• Install Apache Tomcat v5.5 recommended (7MB)
• Can be got from http//tomcat.apache.org/
• Undergrad Windows machines download and unpack
  zip (non-service Windows install) binary
• Undergrad Win boxes dont allow service installs
• Ensure it picks up JDK 1.5.0_01 or above
• Firewall may prevent external machine connections
• Go to coursework resources web page
• Download M-grid server webapp (mgrid.zip),
• Rename as mgrid.war
• Copy into Tomcat-5.5/webapps
• Ensure Tomcat is running
• Go to http//localhost8080/mgrid
• Thats it

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Installing Client Development Kit

• Go to coursework resources web page
• Download and unpack Client developers kit
• Ensure JAVA_HOME set correctly and on PATH e.g.
• Linux export JAVA_HOME/usr/local/jdk1.5.0_01
• Linux export PATHPATH/binPATH
• Win set JAVA_HOMEC\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_
  01
• Win set PATHJAVA_HOME\binPATH
• Thats it

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Compile, Package and Test

• e.g. the Time example
• Compile
• javac -classpath . examples\time\Time.java
• Package
• jar -cf Time.jar examples\time\.
• Test locally with appletviewer
• appletviewer TimeTestWithJar.html
• Trivial applet web page that uses Time.jar
• Use GMT-8 as input output in window
• Ensure you compile it first!!!

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Submitting to m-grid

• Optional open Java 1.5.0 plugin-enabled
  browser, select Volunteer your CPU on m-grid
  server homepage
• Submit to m-grid
• Go to http//serverport/mgrid (e.g.
  http//localhost8080/mgrid) and login
• Username guest Password guest
• Going to use mgridclient/timeParams.txt
• 3 inputs to Time, one per line 3 jobs will be
  created
• Select Submit a Job
• Enter your user name as a job name prefix
• Job Jar File browse, find and select Time.jar
• Parameters File browse, find and select
  timeParams.txt
• Select Next -gt
• NB locations of public servers can be found on
  coursework resources web page

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Monitor and Download Results

• Monitor job
• Select View Jobs
• Look for your chosen Job Name
• Valid job states Uploaded -gt Allocated -gt
  Completed or Failed
• Download results
• Can View Results (or Error Details) for each
  submitted job once complete
• Remove your jobs (only your job!)