Introduction to Portals

1
Introduction to Portals
2
Acknowledgements

• Dharmesh Chohan
• Rob Allan

3
Overview

• What is a portal?
• How does it use certificates?

4
NGS portal en route

• Need to run jobs, access data, from different
  machines and places but do NOT want to
• carry certificate everywhere
• install GT2 before you can use any commands or
  resources
• Uses of a portal
• simple tasks can be achieved easily from a
  browser, via a portal
• easy interface to the Information Service
• Grids are about people collaborating, so give
  tools for this! (chat etc)
• Prototype portal is being prepared for 2nd
  release in a few weeks building on current
  portlet standards and containers

5
What is a portal?
Browser
Portal
Command-line interfaces
GLOBUS, etc.
Users Interface to the grid
6
Example

• GENIUS on the GILDA testbed
• Run by INFN and University of Catania, by Dr
  Roberto Barbera and colleagues
• Demo portal is openly accessible
• https//grid-demo.ct.infn.it/

7
Certificates, MyProxy

• Rather than storing your Grid credentials on each
  machine you use to access the Grid, you can store
  a proxy in a MyProxy repository and retrieve a
  proxy credential when needed.
• MyProxy is part of VDT
• A MyProxy server is run for the NGS
• Note some MyProxy servers are used to store your
  certificate, or a long-lived proxy. Debates on
  security continue.

8
Summary

• MyProxy allows access to stored credentials
• Portals allow single login by username / password
  to access the credentials and use grid services
• User interface is easy and familiar, via browser,
  cf. command line interfaces
• Allows access to a grid from any device that can
  support https and has a browser