Portlet Access Grid – Portlet Access Grid – The Next GenerationThe Next Generation

Tobias Schiebeck, Anja Le Blanc, Andrew Rowley, Martin Turner

Research Computing Services at the University of Manchester

OMII Collaboration Workshop

30th April /1st May 2009

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Contents

What is Portlet Access Grid?

AG(Tk) issues

Standards

Features

Implementation

Timeline

Screenshots

Demo

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What is Portlet Access Grid? (PAG)

Access Grid Client running in a Portal– Supports all

features of the AGTk Servers

– Uses AGTk technologies

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What is AG(Tk)?

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What is AG(Tk)?

AGTk Server

Bridge Server

SOAP

XML-RPC

Bridge RegistryXML-RPC

XML-RPC

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AGTk Issues

AGSC Surveys 2006 and 2007

Common Problems

Difficulty connecting to a venue (e.g. firewall or multicast problems)

not being a multicast site …switch to the unicast bridge …”

AG Firewall rules and Muilticast / Unicast are a nightmare – These need to be simplified and made more reliable

Many partners have problems connecting because they are setting up temporary nodes. Most of the problems are due to inexperience with NAT (port forwarding) & firewall configurations

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Why do we need PAG?

AGSC Surveys 2006 and 2007

Requested Improvements and comments

More reliability Greater coverage of Access Grid across institutions that do not currently have it

Speed of the venue client

Make it more user friendly

…integration into portals …

The AGSC should work towards providing training and advice for user managed desktop access to the system

Increase in use of the personal access grid

Generally a lot of time is spent configuring the software …

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Why do we need PAG?

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Standards

JSR-168 / 286

SOAPHTTPS

XML-RPC H.26

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L16

RTP

UDP

AJAX

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Features

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Features

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Features

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Implementation

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PAG Startup Process

Web browser request

Login to Portal / Input Client Profile – Start of Java Applet (VenueClientController)

• Java WebStart of Client application: VenueClient

Connect to Venue– VenueClient starts services through Java WebStart

• Download and start of VIC/RAT

Start shared application– VenueClient Starts shared application through Java

Webstart• Download and start application and application data

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Screenshots

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Screenshots

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One Year On

PAG funding ended in March 2008

PAG is installed on:– PAG reference Server:

http://pag.rcs.manchester.ac.uk– AGSC pre-production Server:

http://pag.agsc.ja.net PAG is the basis for a new Project “One VRE to Join

Them All” funded by JISC– PAG is being debugged and fixes go on to the PAG

reference and production servers

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Issues addressed by PAG

PAG solved:– software installations and configuring AG

– Maintenance of AG node

– Bridge checking and switching (keeping connected)

PAG provided – Simple – “click and go” – personal node to AG

– A “proof-of-concept” TCP-bridge to tunnel AG-traffic through a single TCP port

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Remaining Issues

AG is still a “high bandwidth job”– A low Bandwidth bridge that filters the incoming (and

outgoing) streams for low bandwidth connections could solve that issue

TCP-bridge is not “production ready”– Moving the ideas from TCP-bridge to a “High-Connectivity

bridge” a production ready solution

Recording Access Grid sessions– done in several projects - should it be integrated into

PAG?

– Replay AG recordings from PAG?

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One VRE to Join Them All

Moving PAG to the next Level:

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One VRE to Join Them All

PAG running in multiple VRE (portals) working as intermediary between collaboration users

Creating Venues on the fly

Monitoring venues of Virtual Organizations

Exchanging certificates for venues between PAG servers

Using invitation principle for venues

Exchanging Data and sharing applications across multiple portals through the AG virtual Venue

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One VRE to Join Them All

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OneVRE – side effects for PAG

PAG has now been tested and “ported” to work in – gridsphere 3.1

– Apache Pluto 1.1.7• PAG works almost “out of the BOX”

– Sakai 2.6.x• Sakai (or the PAG portlet) needs some minor changes to

interoperate

• Changes have been submitted to the Sakai developers that make PAG work in Sakai (still some cosmetic issues, … )

the PAG servers will be brought up to date with fixes developed in and for OneVRE

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Low Barrier Access Grid proposal

Low Barrier Access Grid (LowBAG) is a proposal to develop new and innovative bridging technologies

High Connectivity bridge– TCP-bridge based development to tunnel AG traffic

through a single TCP-port

– Single “defined” Port bridge a Bridge that tunnels all AG traffic through a single defined UDP-port

– Starting from PAG these bridges can connect to the Portal server that can filter the traffic between the users client and the AG server

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Low Barrier Access Grid proposal [2]

Low Bandwidth bridge– TCP-bridge based development to tunnel AG traffic

through a single TCP-port

– Single “defined” Port bridge a Bridge that tunnels all AG traffic through a single defined UDP-port

– Starting from PAG these bridges can connect to the Portal server that can filter the traffic between the users client and the AG server

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Low Bandwidth Bridge

Research Computing ServicesResearch Computing ServicesResearch Computing ServicesResearch Computing Services

PAG Reference Server:

http://pag.rcs.manchester.ac.uk/

Portlet Access Grid DemoPortlet Access Grid Demo

Research Computing ServicesResearch Computing ServicesResearch Computing ServicesResearch Computing Services

Contact Details

http://www.rcs.manchester.ac.uk/projects/PAG

PAG-SUPPORT@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

Tobias.Schiebeck@manchester.ac.uk

Portal Access GridPortal Access Grid