Focused Effort Title: Web Interfaces for Computational Modules

Thematic Areas:
       1. Dod User Productivity
       2. High Performance Tools

PI Name:  David Bernholdt
PI E-mail Address  bernhold@npac.syr.edu
PI Telephone: 315 443 3857
PI Fax: 315 443 1973

Project Description:

During the year 3 we have demonstrated feasibility of implementing a
system that would allow launching and controlling the complete
simulation from a networked laptop. In particular, we successfully
implemented a web interface to the LMS, and we are applying this
technology to applications of the Mobility System Division.

In spite of the success of the WebFlow project, we see that our
current implementation, in which the middle-tier is given by a mesh of
Java enhanced Web Servers, suffers from a number of significant
limitations. Two the most important areas of improvement are fault
tolerance and security. To this end we are re-implementing the WebFlow
middle-tier using industry standards distributed object technologies:
JavaBeans and CORBA, and industry standard secure communication
channels: https (front-end), SSL-based ORB (middle-tier), and GSS-API
interface to Keberos5 (secure access to the back-end computational
resources).

There is a natural synergy between the proposed work here and the
on-going Gateway project at ASC MSRC. The NPAC activities within the
Gateway project are focused on delivering the middle-tier solution and
its coupling with the high performance resources available at ASC
MSRC. The development of the core WebFlow functionality is thus funded
outside the PET programs. Within this project we propose to install
the upgraded WebFlow at CEWES. This will require customization of
interfaces to match the CEWES computational environment.

The main thrust of the proposed work is directed towards building an
environment that will allow creation of custom, application specific
web-based front-ends interfacing the Gateway middle-tier and transfer
this technology directly to application developers at CEWES. We will
demonstrate the system using a suite of applications from different
CTAs.

Benefits:

The Gateway system is designed to provide seamless and secure access
to HPC computational resources in a platform independent way. The
visual front-end will improve productivity of the application
developers and application end users, which in turn will improve the
effective utilization of HPC resources. The system based on the
distributed middle-tier will enable easy software integration and
creation of large scale meta-applications.

Required Resources:


Deliverables:

o Participation in technical meeting at CEWES on implementation of
  improved WEB FLOW functionality within computational systems using
  WEBFLOW at CEWES (Jul'99)

o Implementation of the core of the WebFlow system at CEWES (Aug'99)

o initial updates to computational systems at CEWES employing WEBFLOW
  paradigm (Sep'99, Dec'99)

o Final release, including improvements based on user feedback, full
  documentation (Mar'00)

o User training at CEWES (Mar'00)

o Technical report (Mar'00)

Expected Customers
o  Dr. Jeffrey Holland
o  Dr. Windell Ingram