Introduction To GridSphere

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Introduction To GridSphere

• Maytal Dahan

TeraGrid 07 Conference June 2007
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Portals GridSphere

• What is a portal?
• Web based application that acts as a gateway
  between users and services
  
• Offers a single point of access, unified look
  feel, diverse set of components
  
• What is a Grid Computing portal?
• Browser based interface for accessing grid
  services
  
• Manage credentials, launch jobs, manage files,
  workflows, etc.
  
• Hides grid complexities like Globus and RSL
• Securely Run Anywhere
• Combines grid capabilities with traditional web
  portal capabilities - news feeds, sharing
  documents, search, calendar, customized
  interfaces, etc.
• What is GridSphere?
• Open source grid portal framework to build
  portlet-based web portals
  
• GridSphere is a JSR-168 (open standard for web
  portals) compliant container
  
• Advantage for developer, standard API for
  creating portlets, interoperability
  
• Enables rapid development and packaging of
  portlets that can be run and administered within
  the GridSphere portlet container
  
• Offers a set of core portlets that provide base
  functionality for all web portals

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GridSphere 2.0 Feature List

• GridSphere 2 released in mid-2006, GridSphere 3
  released March 2007
  
• 100 JSR 168 compliant
• Support for the easy development and integration
  of new portlet applications
  
• Higher-level model for building complex portlets
  using visual beans and the GridSphere User
  Interface (UI) tag library.
  
• Flexible XML based portal presentation
  description can be easily modified to create
  customized portal layouts.
  
• Built-in support for Role Based Access Control
  (RBAC) separating users into guests, users,
  admins and super users.
  
• Persistence of data provided using Hibernate OQL
  for database support
  
• Integrated Junit/Cactus unit tests for complete
  server side testing of portlet services including
  the generation of test reports.
  
• GridSphere core portlets
• Login, Logout, Locale settings
• Profile personalization and Layout customization
• Administration portlets for creation of users,
  groups, portlet management and portal layout
  customization
  
• Localization support in the Portlet API
  implementation and portlets support French,
  English, German, Czech, Polish, Hungarian and
  Italian.

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GridSphere Implementation

• The GridSphere portlet container is implemented
  as a web application and requires a hosting
  environment such as the Jakarta Tomcat container.
  
• Many additional libraries are used and deployed
  to the servlet container during installation.

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Authentication Security

• GridSphere supports multiple authentication
• LDAP, Shibboleth, MyProxy authentication can be
  easily added and built in to allow single sing
  on
  
• Access control based on 4 defined roles within a
  group
  
• Guest
• A guest is anyone that has not logged in
• An admin has permissions to manage users in the
  group and edit group layout
  
• Super is the portal administrator
• A group defines a set of deployed portlets with
  access restrictions
  
• Users can be in multiple groups, but can only
  view portlets that they have access to
  

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Persistence

• GridSphere Framework includes basic support for
  persistent objects using PersistenceManager
  singleton
  
• PersistenceManager uses open-source Hibernate
  libraries which provides mechanisms for mapping
  objects to SQL and an object query language
  (OQL)
• Hibernate supports many databases including
  hsqlDB, MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, etc..
  
• Every portlet app manages its own database
  keeping data independent
  

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Core User Portlets

• Login/Logout portlet
• Enables user to logon/logout
• Allows user to refresh password if forgotten
• Configurable option enables new users to request
  an account .
  
• Locale portlet
• Simple locale chooser in the portal banner offers
  support for 7 languages
  
• User profile portlet
• Enables users to configure personal information
  e.g. name, email, locale, preferences
  
• Layout configuration portlet
• Enables users to customize their layout by
  creating new tabs which portlets can be easily
  added to.

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Core Administrative Portlets

• User Manager Portlet
• Enables admins to create/delete/edit portal
  users
  
• Group Manager Portlet
• Enables admins to add/remove users to/from
  portlet groups
  
• Enables admins to select whether a group is
  public or private (public means anyone can join,
  private requires an administrator approval)
  
• Portlet Manager Portlet
• Enables admins to start, stop, or redeploy a
  portlet application
  
• Layout Manager Portlet
• Enables admins to edit existing group layouts

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Extra Portlets

• GridSphere provides extras portlet
  application
  
• Text Messaging portlet communicates to IM users
• Photo album portlet allows users to upload and
  display photos
  
• Poll portlet to create polls and display results
• Chart portlets demonstrating a chart service that
  uses JFreeChart to display plots, timeseries
  graphs, etc.
  
• Commander portlet manages secure portal
  filesystem to upload, download and transfer files

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Software requirements

• Comes with bundled java database
• Can be configured to use external databases, e.g.
  Oracle, MySql, DB2 and many more
  
• Generally it is recommended to use a fresh
  installation of tomcat for each instance of
  GridSphere

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Content

• You can edit all content on the webpage in the
  WYSIWYG Editor

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Layout

• All content and portlets can be easily arranged

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Layout

• Adding a second Tab to the Homepage and the
  Message of the Day Portlet to it
  
• Can add content as well as portlets

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Themes

• Can select themes, easy to create new themes
• Just some images and css files

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GridSphere 2.x vs 3.x

• If you want to migrate code, have a look at
  http//docs.gridsphere.org/display/gs30/PortletMi
  grationGuide
  
• Major Points
• No need for GridSphere specific deployment files
• layout.xml, group.xml, gridsphere-portlet.xml are
  gone
  
• Hibernate version updated
• Added RSS, Message of the Day Portlet
• New CSS engine for layout and themes
• Layout can now configured much more easily by an
  admin
  
• Integration of a Content Management System with
  JSR 170 to manage all textual-content in
  GridSphere
  
• Cleaner Administration Interface
• JSP precompiling for faster startup

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Examples of GridSphere based Portals

• TeraGrid User Portal (http//portal.teragrid.org)

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Examples of GridSphere based Portals

• Lead Gateway Portal (https//portal.leadproject.or
  g)

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More Information

• Thank you!
• Jason Novotny Oliver Wehrens for there valuable
  input
  
• For More GridSphere Information
• Visit GridSphere web site http//www.gridsphere.o
  rg
  
• Subscribe to mailing lists - gridsphere-devel,
  gridsphere-users - at http//lists.gridsphere.org
  
• Documentation tutorials available on the wiki
  at http//docs.gridsphere.org
  
• For More JSR-168 Information
• Visit http//www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id168

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BOF The Future of the TeraGrid User Portal

• What features would you like to see in the User
  Portal?
  
• To hear about upcoming features and share your
  insight and feedback attend the User Portal
  BOF!!
  
• Wednesday June 6th
• 530-630pm
• Main Lounge

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Questions? Comments?

• Maytal Dahan
• maytal_at_tacc.utexas.edu