[Beowulf] Web interfaces for yer cluster.

[Bill Bryce]

In response to the question:

> PBS, Cluster Resources, and LSF all have some type of web portal where
you > can do some of these things. Of course they are commercial and
sometimes 
> not always the most flexible.

Do they expose some sort of API as well?

There is the DRMAA api that SGE, PBS and yes even for LSF
(http://www.fedstage.com/wiki/FedStage_DRMAA_for_LSF).  That API is used
to create portals, and other submission/management tools.

There is also the HPC Profile Working Group within the OGF that is
moving forward with other interesting projects such as HPCP (High
Performance Computing Profile), BES (Basic Execution Service), and JSDL
(Job Submission Description Language) this all ties into OGSA (they will
be demonstrating this stuff at SC07) a BES implementation is available
at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bespp/

DRMAA has been around longer and is now supported by all major batch
systems, the OGF stuff is pretty new - but interesting.

Bill.


-----Original Message-----
From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org]
On Behalf Of Kozin, I (Igor)
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 7:31 AM
To: Mark Hahn; Jeffrey B. Layton
Cc: Beowulf List
Subject: RE: [Beowulf] Web interfaces for yer cluster.


> really?  is it that the can't scrape up enough unix-able people
> to keep their clusters busy?  (I would want to know why - for
instance,
> do they build clusters that are too small to be interesting, or
somehow
> hard to use?  note that it doesn't take much *nix literacy at all to 
> get along great - mainly it's an issue of whether the user is offended
> by anything non-mouse-driven.)

The idea behind this strategy is that if you make your HPC centre
accessible to a large and diverse user community you will be less
susceptible to (minor) problems in your financial support stream since
you broaden up your options. 

> there have been many systems which aim to reduce real apps to basic
> <button>compute!</button> interface.  I've never quite understood why
> they're so seductive, since that level of automation is mainly
justified 
> if you really do wind up pressing the button very frequently.

There are a number of scientific applications with rather well developed
GUIs which are really useful and portable. The next obvious thing to do
is to integrate somehow the GUI with a job manager. I'm not talking here
about interactive steering where such a link is vital. I'm talking about
an interface where you compose your job, submit it and view the result,
and I'm not sure whether a web interface is ideal for this. Some have
done this already, others are still thinking but it would be still worth
the effort to come up with a common API for such programs to use. 

> PBS, Cluster Resources, and LSF all have some type of web portal where
you > can do some of these things. Of course they are commercial and
sometimes 
> not always the most flexible.

Do they expose some sort of API as well?

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