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The goal of this
research is to configure an advanced
computational environment that will
allow General Curvilinear Coastal
Ocean Model (GCOM) test runs and
simulations to be performed using
cyberinfrastructure (CI), emerging
Web 2.0 and internet technologies.
Using CI, GCOM will be able to seamlessly
access large and small computational
resources such as those available
on research campuses or the next
generation of cyberinfrastructure
supported by the NSF, such as the
TeraGrid. What makes the development
of gateways and CI applications
challenging is that the software
must integrate all layers of the
Internet and cyberinfrastructure.
The technologies must connect a
client running an application (e.g.
a computer submitting a request
to a Web service, or a human running
a command line interface or browser)
to remote resources; and they must
manage the middleware data and services
in such a way that the details are
encapsulated from the client. In
order to function within the current
SOA, Web 2.0 and cloud computing
environments, and to scale to the
number of resources and services
existing within this cloud, this
integration must be done dynamically
and automatically. The next generation
CI software needs to be designed
for use by both for high-end applications,
resources, and services (e.g. Gateways
running on 60,000 node clusters),
and by researchers at smaller research
organizations who initially only
have access to local resources and
services. In this paper, we describe
advances made to the General Curvilinear
Coastal Ocean Model Computational
Environment (GCOM-CE). The GCOM-CE
is based on the Cyberinfrastructure
Web Application Framework (CyberWeb).
The GCOM-CE is deployed across a
heterogeneous computing environment
including systems at both universities
(such as SDSU) and NSF TeraGrid.
CyberWeb is based mainly on Python
tools including a grid-enabled Pylons
Web application Framework for Web
services, pyWSRF (python-Web Services-Resource
Framework), pyGlobus based web services,
SciPy, and Google code tools. CyberWeb
improves and extends standard portal
toolkit functions (e.g. job execution,
account management, task history,
GSI authentication, etc) by hosting
applications as Web services, portal
Web pages, or Web 2.0 gadgets CyberWeb
provides two key tools: (1) MySQL
database (with admin Web pages)
for dynamically configuring CyberWeb
installations to connect CI aplications,
users, local services, web services,
and campus clusters with remote
services and resources; (2) a simple
job distribution Web service framework
(Jodis) that distributes application
workloads across heterogeneous computing
systems and compilers (LSF, PBS,
Condor, SGE, Torque). (3) Third
party file transfer capability (4)
Multiple authentication schemes
Additional features under development
include built-in unit testing of
resources, services, and applications;
application distribution service
including a distributed compiler;
managing and interacting with long
running jobs; managing input and
output files; quick visualization
of results; and publishing of GCOM
Web services to be used by other
systems such as larger climate models.
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