FG-157

Project Details

Project Lead

Andrea Bosin 

Project Manager

Andrea Bosin 

Project Members

Giovanni Serra  

Supporting Experts

Javier Diaz Montes  

Institution

University of Cagliari, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science  

Discipline

Computer Science (401) 

Abstract

Recent works have proposed a number of models and tools to address the growing needs and expectations in the field of e-Science. In particular, they have shown the advantages and the feasibility of modeling e-Science environments and infrastructures according to the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). At the same time, the availability and models of use of networked computing resources needed by e-Science are rapidly changing and see the coexistence of many disparate paradigms: high performance computing, grid and recently cloud, which brings very promising expectations due to its high flexibility. Unfortunately, none of these paradigms is recognized as the ultimate solution, and a convergence of all of them should be pursued. In this project we wish to test a model to promote the convergence and the integration of different computing paradigms and infrastructures for the dynamic on-demand provisioning of the resources needed by e-Science environments, especially those developed according to SOA. In addition, such a model aims at endorsing a flexible, modular, workflow-based computing model for e-Science. A working implementation used to validate the proposed approach will be developed and tested using FutureGrid resources.

Intellectual Merit

Promote the convergence and the integration of different computing paradigms and infrastructures for the dynamic on-demand provisioning of the resources needed by e-Science environments, especially those developed according to SOA. Endorse a flexible, modular, workflow-based computing model for e-Science.

Broader Impacts

Promote the usage of shared research and education infrastructure, including facilities and science and technology centers and engineering research centers. Contribute to computational models exploiting advanced computing resources and standardized open software tools. Develop activities that ensure that multi-user facilities are sites of research and mentoring for large numbers of science and engineering students.

Scale of Use

A few VMs (< 10) for a number of experiments, few hours of expected run time for each VM.

Results

 0. Environment inspection

 Eucalyptus environment tested, identified a working set of
 (image, kernel, ramdisk), inspection of a running VM instance
 to extrapolate underlying configuration (virtual devices, kernel
 and kernel modules) for subsequent custom image setup

 1. VM setup

 Setup and deployed custom VM images

 - VM for publishing a Java web service: JRE and web service are
   dynamically downloaded and executed immediately after boot; a
   start-up script is in charge of downloading the web service
   configuration from a public URL 

 - VM for publishing an Apache ODE workflow engine (deployed inside an
   Apache Tomcat container) and a supervisor web service; a
   start-up script is in charge of downloading the workflows (BPEL
   processes) to be deployed into the engine; the supervisor service
   is in charge of downloading workflow input from a public URL and
   enacting one or more workflow instances

 2. VM test

 Deployed VM images have been manually instantiated to verify the correct
 behavior of start-up scripts

 3. Programmatic VM interaction

 Programmatic VM instance creation and termination has been
 successfully achieved through the EC2 APIs by means of the jclouds
 library