Speaker
Describe the added value of the Grid for the scientific/technical activity you (plan to) do on the Grid. This should include the scale of the activity and of the potential user community and the relevance for other scientific or business applications
Usually, the users use a suite of command line tools installed
into specified
machines called User Interfaces. Typically, this approach is for
expert users only
and it brings several limits: user account on a UI, troubles
with net access and
firewalls, VPN client installation on the user machine. Moreover,
commands
must be typed exactly requiring a pretty good knowledge of syntax
and a steep
learning curve is necessary to get new users started. AMGA WI is
designed for
the end user to provide a visual mode to work on the AMGA Server.
The web
interface is very user friendly and there are not dependencies
from the UIs. The
interaction is immediate by means of simple and schematic service
presentation
pages. A simple internet connection is enough to use the service
and wizards
represents a fast and simple way to train and teach users
quickly. However,
the most important point is that no syntax knowledge is required
and users do
not loose the high level conception of their activities.
Describe the scientific/technical community and the scientific/technical activity using (planning to use) the EGEE infrastructure. A high-level description is needed (neither a detailed specialist report nor a list of references).
The AMGA Web Interface Project is carried out by INFN Catania
and IR&T
Engineering s.r.l.(a SME located in Catania,
http://www.irt-engineering,.com).
INFN leads research activities to port several Industrial Use
Cases over the Grid
and the IR&T aims to design a Digital Archive for Cultural
Heritage that adopts
Grid as a Content Management System. Since metadata is at the
base of
cataloguing activity we considered AMGA as support for archiving
functionalities
in our feasibility study.
Report on the experience (or the proposed activity). It would be very important to mention key services which are essential for the success of your activity on the EGEE infrastructure.
AMGA WI allows users to access to the AMGA Server from any
platform and from
anywhere (via internet HTTPS connection). The user just needs a
web browser,
an internet connection and a valid VOMS proxy to be authenticated
to the AMGA
Server. After a successful login he will able to interact with
the AMGA Server
and use the same functionalities of AMGA as he/she would have
been using the
command line client. The user is able to browse the hierarchy of
AMGA
collections, to inspect their schema and permissions and to list
their entries.
He/she also can create a new collection, to define a metadata
schema for it and
modify this one adding/deleting attributes. Finally, he/she can
add/edit/delete
entries. The application provides the user with a tool to define
and execute
queries in order to find entries that match against specified
conditions. All
previous operations are performed according to the role that the
user has in
the VO he/she belongs to (this is done using the VOMS features).
With a forward look to future evolution, discuss the issues you have encountered (or that you expect) in using the EGEE infrastructure. Wherever possible, point out the experience limitations (both in terms of existing services or missing functionality)
AMGA WI is built on top of the AMGA API. We did not have
encounter many
issues in using the gLite middleware during the development of
the AMGA WI
application. We had just some troubles (they revealed already
known bugs)
with the API but their developers gave us fast support. The only
issue that
deserves to be underlined regards the impossibility to design a
“Connection
Pool” for the AMGA Server since each AMGA session is tightly
dependent on the
security credentials of the current logged user
