Grid Content Evolution

1
Grid Content Evolution Management
Institute for Remote Sensing Technology Innovatio
n Management and Technology Marketing
2
Grid Content Evolution ManagementEnabling
e-Science for the Rest of Us

• Thilo Ernst
• Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture
  and Software Technology (Thilo.Ernst_at_first.fhg.de
  )
• Jochen Wauer
• DLR Institute for Remote Sensing Technology

Institute for Remote Sensing Technology Innovatio
n Management and Technology Marketing
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Scientific Software Just A Mouse Click Away (1)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• A 1968 vision
• ... Back to our hypothetical user. He seats
  himself at his console .... He dials his
  local computer and 'logs in' by presenting his
  name, problem number, and password to the
  monitor program. He calls for either a public
  program, one of his own programs, or a
  colleague's program that he has permission to
  use. The monitor links him to it, and he then
  communicates with that program...
  - J.C.R. Licklider, "The Computer as a
  Communication Device"
  (Director,
  ARPA-Information Processing Techniques Office)
• Did he just mean telnet?

4
e-Science a contemporary Definition
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• e-Science is about global collaboration in key
  areas of science and the next generation of
  infrastructure that will enable it.
• large scale science that will increasingly be
  carried out through distributed global
  collaborations enabled by the Internet.
  Typically, a feature of such collaborative
  scientific enterprises is that they will require
  access to very large data collections, very large
  scale computing resources and high performance
  visualisation
• The Grid is an architecture proposed to bring
  all these issues together and make a reality of
  such a vision for e-Science
• e-Science will change the dynamic of the way
  science is undertaken ()
• (Source UK Research Council
  e-Science Core Programme)

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The entire story?
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• Grid computing / e-Science still focus on
  high-demand, large-scale applications
• Evolution high performance computing ? Grid
  computing ? e-Science renders an emphasis on
  such applications understandable
• But when mature Grid e-Science technologies are
  available they will likely be attractive to, a
  wealth of smaller (and computationally less
  demanding) research efforts - e-Science will
  become ubiquitous ()
• But for this to happen, these technologies must
  develop additional characteristics unrelated to
  the original HPC focus of the Grid movement

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Scientific Software Just A Mouse Click Away (2)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• 2003 Are we there?
• Internet WWW are ubiquitious and have
  revolutionized the exchange of scientific
  information
• But progress w.r.t. scientific software lacks
  behind when compared with the ease of accessing
  scientific documents today
• Reuse by download requires installation or
  even porting limiting factor for broad exchange
• Distributed computing technologies exist (remote
  shells, CORBA, Java-RMI, Web Services) but there
  is no reliable, ubiquitous infrastructure to
  which Lickliders request could be addressed.
  Answer No.

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Scientific Software Just A Mouse Click Away (3)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• ... New question Why?
• in much of real life science
• (non-Computer) Scientists, beyound a reasonable
  limit of extra effort, simply dont have time
  and/or motivation to do our (CS/IT) work
• - build, deploy, maintain e-Science-supportin
  g platforms- integrate scientific applications
  into these platforms on a regular basis- and
  learn how to do all that in the first place

Scientist ? Computer Scientist
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How did the Web succeed as a publishing medium?
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer
Characteristics Enabling factors, time Evolutionary advantage
1. easy to use in read-mode for almost everybody Browsers 1993Search engines 1994 moreconsumers
2. easy to write without web developer background LaTex2HTML, MS-Office web integration 1996 moreproducers
3. collaboration/community support (Cross-site links 1990) community portals 1999 Mutual reinforcement community / medium
4. support for traditional editorial processes content management systems 1999 organize content growth,integrate with print media
5. infrastructure ubiquitous, commoditized, reliable ISPs/hosters become an industry (1998) Specialization / division of work
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Towards Broad e-Science what is missing?
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• For e-Science/Grid technology to achieve the role
  of the primary collaboration medium in broad
  scientific computing, it seems desirable to
  develop similar platform survival
  characteristics
• 1. Ease of use for passive users (consumers)
  Grid/Science portals / Desktops
• 2. Ease of use for producers (authors of
  services) - ?
• 3. Collaboration support at the core of the
  Grid / e-science movement
• 4. Support for editorial processes - ?
• 5. Infrastructure gets ubiquitous commoditized
  Industry interest

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DLR VirtualLab an e-Science precursor (1)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• technology transfer project 2000-02 (50)
• make scientific software accessible from
  every web browser (like scientific documents
  already are)
• tap unexploited application potential
• promote technology transfer as well as
  scientific exchange (internally, too!)
• make better use of this part of DLRs scientifíc
  output

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DLR VirtualLab an e-Science precursor (2)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• online at http//vl.nz.dlr.de
• Pre-Grid (dedicated cluster)
• Zope/Python,OpenPBS, mySQL, OpenLDAP, ...
• a specialized ASP platform for an
  interesting class of scientific software
• IEEE CiSE, Feb. 2003
• project now continues as a DLR/Fraunhofer
  collaboration

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DLR VirtualLab Concepts for broad adoption of
e-Science(1)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• Care about the process
• keep the barrier to entry low both for
  consumers and for producers
• learn from publishing (traditional
  web-based)
• use staging !

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DLR VirtualLab Concepts for broad adoption of
e-Science(2)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer
Make life easy for consumers producers - dont
exclude important classes of users - black-box
integration no internal modifications
whatsoever - Provide cheap UIs through
generation - strive to re-use existing (G)UIs -
Integration tools, perhaps web-based
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DLR VirtualLab Concepts for broad adoption of
e-Science(2)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer
Make life easy for consumers producers - dont
exclude important classes of users - black-box
integration no internal modifications
whatsoever - Provide cheap UIs through
generation - strive to re-use existing (G)UIs -
Integration tools, perhaps web-based
ID(na'Lambda', Name pe'_NF and
_Lambda_use', precondition ty'FloatType',
type de'0.5', default value
ce'Lambda gt 0.0', constraint
un'mu_m', physical unit an'Input
wavelength') annotation
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DLR VirtualLab Concepts for broad adoption of
e-Science(2)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer
Make life easy for consumers producers - dont
exclude important classes of users - black-box
integration no internal modifications
whatsoever - Provide cheap UIs through
generation - strive to re-use existing (G)UIs -
Integration tools, perhaps web-based
16
DLR VirtualLab Concepts for broad adoption of
e-Science(3)
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• Integrate human-readable information with
  executable (software) resources
• online help and background info
• (computational) service search engines for
  managing the new e-Science resource deluge
• Structured metadata are good, but documentation
  can serve as a good fallback fingerprint

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Conclusions
Grid Content Evolution Management - e-Science
For The Rest Of Us T.Ernst, J.Wauer

• e-Science will likely evolve to broad/ubiquitous
  e-Science
• support not only HPC users but the
  broader/general scientifc computing community
• to help that process, make life easy for
• A widely deployed Grid-based e-science
  infrastructure is a publshing medium- support
  the process by content management, leveraging
  suitable technologies

Grid content producers - strive for allowing black-box integration of apps (G)UIs - provide integration tools
Grid content consumers - dont exclude important groups - simple browser-based access for occasional users remains valuable