Contract Year 1 Review Online Knowledge Center: OKC

1
Contract Year 1 ReviewOnline Knowledge Center
OKC

• Geoffrey Fox
• Community Grids Laboratory, Indiana University
• 14 May 2002

2
OKC Technical Overview Strategy

• Top Functionalities for Users
• Provide a unified way to store and access
  knowledge for PET and DoD HPCMP users
• Administrative and Research Portal for training
  (registration, assessment and curricula
  material), publications, announcements, CTA
  specific information, HPCC resources, PET
  Projects including informational material and
  rich suite of user generated input
• Critical Features
• Allow distributed knowledge update with efficient
  centralized approval
• Provide robust security mechanisms and
  high-performance servers
• Allow common look and feel with component model
  for all material
• Information stored persistently in Oracle
  databases
• Synergy with Grid Forum, HPCMO, community and
  commercial activities
• Support e-mail or form (wizard)-based input and
  dynamic XML specified schema for all data and
  knowledge
• Support multi-media, HTML, XML and CGI/Web
  service based data
• Must use sustainable broadly deployable
  technologies

3
OKC Technical Overview Year 1 Efforts

• Note this is a new start and needed initial steps
  not present in other FAs
• Identified requirements and existing material
• Distributed content management with simple web
  authoring
• Set up PET-wide implementation strategy involving
  PET technologists and with agreed upon review
  mechanism
• Identified set of innovative technologies that
  are standards-based, largely open source, and
  that meet requirements
• Delivers on OKC functionality in a sustainable
  fashion
• Have already made existing sites and several
  units of new material available on or ahead of
  schedule
• Several advanced services (News groups, training,
  distributed update, Search) have been prototyped
  and will be integrated into deployed OKC

4
The OKC Component Efforts
Users
FMS/C4IIMTSIPET------CCMCEACENCDLT
CFD CSMOKCEOT------EQMCWOCE
HPCMP/PETManagement
AdvisoryCommittee
5
OKC Technical Overview FAPOC Role

• Track Technologies and interact with academic and
  commercial best practitioners
• Use experience to identify appropriate technology
  choices for OKC
• Interact with HPCMP and MOS team
• Design basic and advanced capabilities
• Monitor projects and advise staff and students
• Develop training material and research
  presentations

6
Technical User Codes Impacted by PET

• Codes currently on OKC
• CEA 20 codes by following "Software" link to
  EMCC page
• CEN 1 software listing (Co-Site Interference)
• CE 3 project listings
• ARL PET 1 Site Link to 7 CCM codes
• ERDC from PET 1, under SPP tools 12 listings of
  tools

7
Technical User Contacts and Assistance

• 2 Trips Indiana to ERDC
• 1 Trip ERDC to Indiana
• Substantial Comments on OKC from 4 FAs SIP, ET,
  CEN, CEA
• Presentation suggestions and Netscape 4.7 problem
  in Apache software corrected
• Training subsystem designed with input from all
  MSRCs Training representatives and Sue Brown
• 9 May 2002 Mason Colbert will visit Indiana to
  review prototype
• Detailed discussion with SIP team and 10 May 2002
  trip of John Nehrbass to Indiana to discuss
  advanced SIP requirements (email archiving)

8
Technical Tools Introduced to Community

• Jetspeed Apache Portal
• Slide Apache WebDAV Distributed Authoring
  standard
• Velocity Apache web-page macro system
• JMS Java Message Service for workflow
• Oracle 9i XML enhanced database
• XML Variety of tools supporting use of XML in
  science and information systems

9
Technical Conferences etc.

• 4April 2002 OKC Training with 10 presentations
  and detailed technical report (available on OKC
  Web Site) given to team from ERDC (Lesa Nelson,
  Wes Monceaux, Patti Duett)
• Discussed OKC in detail and deployment at ERDC.
• June 2002 UGC Meeting (planned)
• OKC Presentation
• OKC BoF
• OKC related technologies Tutorial (full day)

10
Metrics Technical Reports and Articles

• Online Knowledge Center Development Web Site
  http//judi.ucs.indiana.edu/okcportal
• Mehmet Aktas, Galip Aydin, Mehmet Necati Aysan,
  Ozgur Balsoy, Geoffrey Fox, Cevat Ikibas, Ali
  Kaplan, Jungkee Kim, Marlon Pierce, Ahmet Topcu,
  and Beytullah Yildiz
• Technical Report Design Features and Technology
  Evaluations for the PET Online Knowledge Center
  http//grids.ucs.indiana.edu/ptliupages/publicati
  ons/OKCReport.pdf
• Short Article The Online Knowledge Center
  Building a Component Based Portal
  http//grids.ucs.indiana.edu/ptliupages/publicati
  ons/OKCPaper1x1.pdf
• Geoffrey Fox, presentation at ICCS 2002 April
  24Web Services and Peer-to-Peer Technologies for
  the Grid http//grids.ucs.indiana.edu/ptliupages/p
  resentations/iccsapril02.ppt Covers portal
  architectures including OKC

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OKC 001 N62306-01-D-7110/Task Order No. 0019OKC
Rapid Deployment

• Deploy and Support OKC content including PET 1
  web sites
• Support development OKC at IU and work with ERDC
  on deployment of operational OKC
• Deploy and modify core (Jetspeed) Technology

• 249,611.00
• Geoffrey Fox

• Oct/Dec 2001 Consultation with Government as to
  hardware and software needed for operational OKC.
• 1 Jan 2001 Initial Consultation with OKC
  Advisory Council
• 1 Jan 2001 Early OKC-RD
• 1 Apri1 2002 Base hardware and software in
  place
• 1 May 2002 Prototype of OKC-RD
• 30 September 2002 Completed OKC-RD

Done
On track
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Project Financial Summary OKC 001
13
OKC 002 N62306-01-D-7110/Task Order No. 0020OKC
Advanced Technology

• Develop advanced capabilities for OKC including
• News Groups
• Search
• Content Management
• Metadata wizard for form input

• 181,898.00
• Geoffrey Fox

• 1 April 2002 Design Report for OKC-AT
• 1 June 2002 Advanced metadata specification
  wizard with application to training registration
  prototype implemented
• 1 July 2002 OKC Hardware and Software Systems
  upgraded.
• 30 September 2002 Deployment of OKC-AT prototype
  in tandem with OKC-RD. The system design and
  functionality will be described in a final
  technical report.

Done
On track
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Project Financial Summary OKC 002
15
Core Financial Summary
Note data not available for April or May
16
Staffing

• Geoffrey Fox funded by Core
• 10 Administrative support funded by core
• Marlon Pierce funded by OKC-RD project (82)
• Wenjun Wu funded by OKC-AT project (30)
• 4 Graduate students funded by OKC-RD project
• 4 Graduate students funded by OKC-AT project

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Summary and Issues

• OKC successful and on schedule with base
  capabilities and gradual integration of advanced
  technologies
• Broader deployment will need continued
  substantial attention to user needs
• Ready for content from other FAs
• SIP has been our best customer
• Many PET requests (such as format of this
  presentation) are not easily matched to OKC which
  is new and not a CTA
• Often not clear how to respond

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Backup
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What is a (Jetspeed) Portal ?

• Portals provide a modular (component based) way
  of integrating multiple distributed content
  sources into a single customizable user interface

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OKC SIP Home
21
OKC CEN Home
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What have we achieved? (1)

• We identified Jetspeed, which has many desirable
  features for the distributed component system we
  envision.
• We modified Jetspeed open source Java to greatly
  improve display of web pages
• We set up the OKC using PET 1 web material. This
  included static html pages, pages with
  JavaScript, pages created dynamically from Perl
  scripts. This provided us with a wide range of
  material to experiment with.
• Jetspeed reconstructs HTML into Java objects
  with ECS, and ECS is less forgiving of illegal
  html and JavaScript than commercial browsers, so
  this was an important exercise.
• In addition to NAVO, ARL, ASC, and ERDC, we also
  obtained Web material from CEN, CEA, CE, and SIP,
  for which we are very appreciative.
• We worked with CPOCs and MOS and HPTI management
  to define a content approval process content is
  initially added to a testbed server, reviewed by
  CPOCs. The CPOC calls in additional reviewers if
  judged this necessary. Approved material is
  promoted to the regular OKC.

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What have we achieved? (2)

• We ran preview tests of the OKC with all of the
  PET MOS and HPTi teams invited to participate and
  comment. The current OKC represents their
  comments on look and feel (but we will have to
  follow up on this at the users group meeting).
• Base hardware and software in place and running
  at IU by April 1
• Development OKC is currently available, beating
  the May deadline for this.
• The system was extensively documented in a
  lengthy report available from the OKC web site.
  Report was delivered to ERDC CPOC and other OKC
  management.
• We also have submitted a much briefer (6 page)
  overview of the OKC to the International
  Multiconference on Computer Science.
• We solved the Netscape 4.x problem. This was
  important because many of the OKC users are Unix
  workstation based and NN 4.x is all they have.
• We will contribute this and other Jetspeed
  improvements back to open source

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What have we achieved? (3)

• We also solved a firewall issue for ASC users
  (their firewall blocked access to external
  servers on nonstandard ports, so we moved the OKC
  to port 80).
• We are on track to deliver the (training)
  Metadata wizard by the deadline, June 1.
• On April 4, we hosted an all-day meeting with a
  team from ERDC (Lesa Nelson, Wes Monceaux, Patti
  Duett) to describe OKC efforts, discuss
  deployment at ERDC. The slides from this meeting
  are on the OKC site (under OKC tab).
• We are developing an online training system with
  guidance from MSRC training coordinators/tech
  leads (Lesa Nelson, Jennifer Moses, Brian Tabor,
  Mason Colbert). Mason will help us complete
  internal testing on May 9-10, and we hope to roll
  this out to the other training leads the
  following week.
• We developed a newsgroup system that is ready to
  be tested.
• Content Management and Search capabilities are in
  early prototype stage

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What have we achieved? (4)

• The SIP team has presented us with a long wish
  list of features (and Bill Zilliox has
  augmented). We are hosting a meeting with John
  Nehrbass on May 9-10 to discuss these,
  particularly their request for an email archiving
  system. We are making a custom filter for the
  newsgroup system to support this, and the SIP
  team should be able to start using this as early
  as week of May 13. We will have follow up
  meetings with Stan Ahalt and the rest of the SIP
  team at the users group meeting to discuss SIP
  wish list.
• And we wish everyone else were as proactive as
  SIP.
• We will have an OKC presentation and OKC
  technology tutorial at the users group meeting in
  Austin
• We have requested a BoF for the Austin meeting as
  well. If this does not get scheduled, we will
  organize an informal BoF there.