Combining a Virtual Grid Testbed and eLearning Courseware

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Combining a Virtual Grid Testbed and eLearning
Courseware

• Kathryn Cassidy, Jason McCandless, Stephen
  Childs, John Walsh, Brian Coghlan, Declan Dagger
• Department of Computer Science, Trinity College,
  Dublin
• Kathryn.Cassidy_at_cs.tcd.ie

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Introduction

• Why eLearning ?
• Refresher courses for existing users
• Self-paced learning for new users
• Independent learning for everyone
• Reduced demands on training staff

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Introduction

• Why eLearning ?
• Refresher courses for existing users
• Self-paced learning for new users
• Independent learning for everyone
• Reduced demands on training staff
• Why integrate an eLearning testbed ?
• Practicals driven by eLearning tools
• Self-paced hands-on practicals
• Could grade users from practical work

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EL Testbed Requirements

• Dedicate resources to guarantee QoS
• Isolate training testbed for security
• Simulate the real infrastructure
• Integrate eLearning Grid environment
• Make easy to use and configure
• Follow best-practice for eLearning

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Our Solution - Overview
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Virtualisation

• Xen Virtual Machines
• Significantly reduces hardware requirements
• Good performance compared to reference grid
  install on physical machines

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Network Infrastructure

• ELGrid machines have same IP addresses as
  production machines
• Routing redirects packets to the ELGrid machines
  as needed
• Firewalling so internal traffic is not
  accidentally sent to production net
• Identical network config to production Grid only
  MAC addresses are different

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GridBuilder

• VM images for different node types
• Copy-on-write image for each node
• Simple web-based front-end
• Quattor then used to apply the individual
  configuration

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Configuration Management

• Quattor Fabric Management system
• Preconfigured templates for Grid nodes available,
  e.g. LCG, gLite
• Identical templates used to configure the
  production and ELGrid sites
• Configuration stored centrally
• Autonomous nodes pull configuration and update
  themselves

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Deployment

• Transactional Deployment tool
• Push-button deployment
• Production Grid TransDeploy instance
• Pushes Quattor templates, etc, out to the install
  servers in each production site
• ELGrid TransDeploy instance
• Pushes Quattor templates, etc, out to the virtual
  install servers in ELGrid
• Quattor then completes node config

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APeLS ACCT Toolset

• Adaptive Personalised eLearning Service
• Adaptive Course Construction Toolkit
• Web services based
• Personalised courses for each user
• Tracks user progress

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Future work

• Complete Deployment
• Remaining replica Grid-Ireland sites
• ApeLS and GridSite integration
• Online ELGrid CA/RA (only valid in ELGrid)
• User Evaluation