Standard-based Interoperability amongst Local, Grid and Cloud Resources Distributed Worldwide

1. Standard-based Interoperability amongst Local, Grid and Cloud Resources Distributed Worldwide Diego Scardaci, INFN Catania EGI Community Forum 2013 – Manchester, 9 April 2013

2. Outline • Introductoryconsiderations • The Catania Science Gateway framework • The CHAIN worldwideinteroperabilityprogram • Science Gateways and clouds • Summary and conclusions

3. The “Global” Grid CNGrid EUAsiaGrid NKN & Garuda SAGrid & SANREN GISELA

4. The “non-Global” middleware CNGrid Genesis II Building and operating Grids is not trivial. Middleware installation and management requires a significant overhead w.r.t. normal system administration and almost no middleware has clear sustainability plans. EUAsiaGrid NKN & Garuda SAGrid & SANREN GISELA

5. Using Gridsisnotstraightforward Users have to cope with complex security procedures, execution scripts, job description languages, command line based interfaces and lack of standards. This makes the learning curve very steep and keeps non IT-experts away.

6. The eResearch2020 report(http://www.eresearch2020.eu/eResearch%20Brochure%20EN.pdf) • Some barriers in the adoption of Grids: • Changes on Grids means changes on applications • Time required to adapt usual workflows • Lack of structure to support anonymous access • Download and installation of applications • Interface • Slow to get to compared to other resources • Difficult to use in the beginning • Time spent to get the application compiled and running

7. Community-driven web portals have started to integrate Grid Tools and Applications “A Science Gateway is a community-developed set of tools, applications, and data that is integrated via a portal or a suite of applications, usually in a graphical user interface, that is further customized to meet the needs of a specific community.” Teragrid/XSEDE

8. Interoperability – Does this definition apply to e-Infrastructures ? • Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to system performance; • According to ISO/IEC 2382-01 (Information Technology Vocabulary, Fundamental Terms), interoperability is "The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units".

9. The Catania Science Gateway framework Administrator Power User Basic User Embedded Applications ....... App.1 App.2 App.N Science Gateway Standard-based (SAGA) middleware-independent Grid Engine Users from differentorganisationshavingdifferentroles and privileges Grid/Cloud/Local middlewaresupported so far

10. AuthN & AuthZ Schema Science Gateway Authorisation Authentication GrIDP (“catch-all”) 1. Register to a Service Social Networks’ Bridge IdP IDPCT (“catch-all”) IDP_y 2. Sign in LDAP .........

11. Identity Federations in the world(https://refeds.org) 1,500 Institutions 2,100 Services >17 millionpeople worldwide

12. Official Identity Federationscurrentlysupported by Catania Science Gateways In progress

13. Uptake of CataniaScience Gateways(as of the end of 2012) Users from 219 Organisations in 47 Countries 12 Science Gateways in production; 4 in preparation

14. The CHAIN Worldwide Interoperability Demo(http://science-gateway.chain-project.eu) • To demonstratethat: • e-Infrastructures can be made interoperable to eachotheratuserapplicationlevelusingstandards • with the meaning of interoperabilitygivenabove; • VRC-specificapplications can be submitted from anywhere and runeverywhere

15. The Catania Grid& Cloud Engine LiferayPortlets Science GW 1 Science GW 3 Science GW 2 Grid/Cloud Engine Science GW Interface eToken Server UsersTrack & Monit. Users Tracking DB Data Engine Job Engine SAGA/JSAGA API Grid/Cloud/Local MWs New New Modified New Modified Modified

16. CHAIN Demo Contributors

17. CHAIN Demo Status(http://science-gateway.chain-project.eu/demo-status)

18. CHAIN Demo Status(http://science-gateway.chain-project.eu/demo-status)

19. Science Gateways and clouds – The MyCloud service for IaaS/PaaS Powered by:

20. Summary and conclusions • e-Infrastructures can be very beneficial platforms for many users, provided they are really «easy to use» and users are at their centre • The Catania Science Gateway framework, with support for Identity Federationschanges the way Gridinfrastructures are used, hugelywideningtheirpotentialuser base across continents and organisations, especially non-IT experts and the “citizen scientist” • The adoption of standards (JSR 286, SAGA, SAML, etc.) represents a concrete investmenttowardssustainability • The CHAIN worldwide interoperability program demonstrated that, through Science Gateways based on standards, users can really access global e-Infrastructures in a seamless and ubiquitous way independently of the underlying middleware (local, grid, cloud) • The CHAIN approach allows to gather distributed resources from all over the regions of the world and get a truly global e-Infrastructure, yet respecting local specificities and exploiting competences of all participating organisations

21. Thankyou !