UK Grid Support Centre
Alistair Mills
CLRC e-Science Centre
http://www.e-science.clrc.ac.uk/
a.b.mills@rl.ac.uk
02/07/03
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Who we are . . .
• Part of the e-Science Core Programme
• Team of 6 FTE posts based at CLRC
(RAL+DL), and Universities of Edinburgh
and Manchester (but actually provided by a
pool of some 25-30 people at these sites)
• Exists to help users install and apply Grid
software quickly, easily and productively
• Supports deployment of a Grid
infrastructure for UK e-Science projects
(with Regional Centres + collaborators)
– Level 2 operational Easter 2003
02/07/03
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Provides support . . .
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Helpdesk support@grid-support.ac.uk
– first point of contact for requests and queries
– personally contactable during office hours
– provides access to technical expertise at all sites
Web information resource http://www.grid-support.ac.uk
– tutorials
– evaluation reports
– links to other resources
Grid Starter Kit http://esc.dl.ac.uk/StarterKit
– downloadable software
– installation support
– documentation
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Hits now up to 15,000
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. . . and services
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Certificate Authority for the UK e-Science programme
issues X.509 digital certificates usable with Globus GSI
– uses network of Registration Authorities to validate users
– moving from current manual process to more automated procedure
– see http://www.grid-support.ac.uk/ca
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National monitoring and discovery service ginfo.grid-support.ac.uk
based on Globus MDS 2.2
– holds published information on Grid-enabled resources
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Training for system administrators
– to help with setting up local installations
Reference software installations on supported platforms
– Linux, AIX, Solaris, IRIX, Tru64
Grid infrastructure deployment
Liaison with software development teams
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How the Certificate
Authority works
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RAs appointed at each university involved in e-Science programme
RA consists of an RA manager and one or more RA operators
New CA will be accessible by users using a web interface
– based on development of the OpenCA code
– currently under test by external users
User identifies their local RA using the CA interface and
generates a certificate request
User goes to their local RA with photo-ID
RA verifies the user is who they claim to be and understands how
to use and safeguard their certificate
RA approves user’s certificate request to the CA
CA signs the user’s certificate and returns it to the user
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How the Information
Service works
A portal has been created for the
deployment of the e-Science Grid. It
uses the MDS system via services on
ginfo to create HTML-based and online Web services for resource
discovery and monitoring.
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Resource-oriented view of compute
and data resources
http://esc.dl.ac.uk/InfoPortal
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Virtual Organisation view using UDDI
with links to contacts, resources and
trading models
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Site-oriented view via an active map
http://esc.dl.ac.uk/InfoPortal/Map
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Software supported
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Currently
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Globus Toolkit 2 (production release v2.2.3)
Condor
SRB (CLRC is developing a stand-alone installation)
Sun GridEngine (expertise at Edinburgh)
Network monitoring tools (at Daresbury, in collaboration with GNT)
Soon
– Web services + UDDI registry (based on work at Daresbury)
– Globus Toolkit 3 + OGSA + Grid services
– Data Access and Integration Grid services (OGSA-DAI,
support from Edinburgh)
In future
UNICORE (support from Manchester if required)
– . . . anything else required?
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Co-ordination
between
GSC and GNT
• A single helpdesk for all Grid-related problems
including networking issues
– you don’t have to know the source of the problem before
you report it
• Network expertise to identify and diagnose networkrelated problems
– NB - identified local network problems must still be
reported and dealt with through established channels
• Effort to develop and deploy network monitoring
facilities
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Input sought from
Projects and Centres
• Local first line technical support person
– provide on the spot assistance for local users
– filter out issues which can be resolved locally
• Continuing dialogue with the GSC and GNT as
development plans and support requirements evolve
• Identify future directions and requirements – what
middleware should we support? What applications?
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Meetings so far . . .
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Cambridge Centre
London Centre
AstroGrid project
Southampton Centre
Geodise project
Oxford Centre (GSC only)
Newcastle Centre
RealityGrid project
Comb-e-Chem project
Belfast Centre
Cardiff Centre
Manchester Centre
MyGrid project
02/07/03
20 December 2001
15 January 2002
30 January 2002
1 February 2002
8 February 2002
25 February 2002
5 March 2002
19 March 2002
11 April 2002
16 April 2002
20 June 2002
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Grid Infrastructure
The UK Grid Engineering Task Force has been asked to
manage the rollout of e-Science middleware to create a Grid
infrastructure for research projects over the coming years.
This Grid is comprised of:
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Resources at the Regional e-Science Centres;
Resources at collaborating sites ;
UK e-Science and other Applications
Middleware and tools developed in UK e-Science projects;
Globus, Web services and OGSA-complient open-source components.
Rollout phases:
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Level 1 (autumn 2002) – UK MDS working
Level2 (Easter 2003) – pre-installed applicatations and users Globus GT2
Level3 – accounting, user management etc. Globus GT3
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How to contact us
There is a single point of contact for the Grid Support
Centre and its related activities:
• Via the Web
– http://www.grid-support.ac.uk/
• By e-Mail
– support@grid-support.ac.uk
• By 'phone
– 01235 446822
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