Facilitating the use of eInfrastructure: NeSC Training Team

Enabling, facilitating and delivering quality training in the UK and

Internationally

Training Team

Background

The NeSC training team was formed in April 2004.

With initially two staff it has now grown to 7 staff.

Members of the training team are supported by

EU and Research Council grants.

Leader: Prof. Malcolm AtkinsonEU training manager: David Fergusson

UK training manager: Mike Mineter

Support from other projectsNeSC Visitors

eg. Jennifer Shopf (Globus team)

International relationshipsBen Clifford (Globus team)

Miron Livny (Condor)Roberto Barbera (GENIUS/GILDA)

Ruediger Berlich (GidKa FZK)Close relationships internally with:

EdinaBRIDGESQTLGrid

Staff with specific training and support rolesOGSA-DAI NextGrid

GOSC (NGS)

Scope of training

The training team has delivered training ranging from

introductory material on grids toadvanced courses

for application developers research leaders in other fields

Current training topics

Induction

Middleware installation

Middleware APIs

Next generation middlware

Web ServicesWSDLWSRFGlobus Toolkit

Training team produces courses based on commitments and training requests which have been received

GT Course, Edinburgh

Training topics

Middleware (LCG, Globus, Condor, NGS)

User induction to middleware And applications

Application developerMiddleware (UML, web services)Applications (UML, web services)

Data ServicesOGSA-DAISRBgridFTP

Training Team backgrounds

Biology

Geography/Finance

Physics

IT

Digital Libraries

Courses delivered

In the 6 months since its inception the training team has directly delivered:

9 training events in the UK At NeSC and the University of Stafford For JISC, EGEE, NGS and OMII

7 training events in Europe In CERN, FZK Karlsruhe, CNB Madrid, Lithuania and Italy. For EGEE

Also dissemination presentations to introduce people to the concept of the grid

Within Edinburgh

OGSA-DAI in Edinburgh

Open Grid Services Architecture – Data Access and Integration

Being developed in Edinburgh by NeSC and EPCC

Widely supported in the grid world and by industry (IBM)

http://www.ogsadai.org.uk/index.php

Beyond Edinburgh

-the UK

Outside Edinburgh – grids in the UK

The UK wide provision of grid services is through the National Grid Service (NGS)

Support for grid users through the Grid Operations Centre (GOSC) - Edinburgh is part of this distributed virtual centre

What is the NGS?

The NGS is the core UK gridFrom the UK's e-Science programme. NGS is supported by JISCRun by the Grid Operations Support Centre (GOSC). The NGS is funded by

JISC (3 clusters),CCLRC (1 data cluster), and EPSRC (CSAR and HPCx).

NGS Core Services – OGSA-DAI

Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)Database Access and Integration (DAI)Developed by UK e-Science projects OGSA-DAI and DAITOGSA-DQP (Distributed Query Processor)Experimental service based on OGSI/GT3 on Manchester data node only

will consider WS-I and WSRF flavours when in final release

Uses Oracle underneathEarly users from e-Social Science (ConvertGrid)

NGS Core Services – Oracle

Oracle 9i databaseOnly on data nodes

Populated by users/data providers

Infrastructure maintained by NGS database administratorsUsed directly or via OGSA-DAI

Beyond the UK

– Europe and the World

Outside Edinburgh – grids in Europe and the world

Enabling grids for EsciencE – EGEE

Edinburgh is an important partner in this EU initiative (biggest Framework 6 project)

Edinburgh is the lead partner responsible for managing training throughout EGEE

European training

European training has delivered well above planned targets

raising grid awarenessgaining usersbuilding teamsempowering developers

Coordination of training in Europe

The NeSC training team is the leading partner for the training effort in the EGEE project.It coordinates and provides quality assurance for training with 22 partner institutions in 13 countries.In the recent EU review of this project this training activity was singled out as ‘excellent’.

Aspects of training infrastructure

T-InfrastructureTraining often requires special e-Infrastructure

T-Infrastructure emulates e-Infrastructuretechnical, operational & management aspects required by courses

T-Infrastructure may anticipate a future platformPreparing for middleware releases

Authentication at (or just before) a courseFlexibility, light-weight – don’t frighten the participants

Authorisation may restrict imposed loadsLimit student & course impact – e.g. from errors

T‑Infrastructure may be operated in isolationGuarantees of availability and response

Student exercises generate peak loadsPedagogical requirement for a quick response

T-Infrastructure at Edinburgh

Dedicated 20 node cluster being delivered

NeSC training room PCs

Access Grid for training support

TRAINING ARCHIVEMetadata

Date, course topic, module, author, location, language, version, file type, practical resources, external resources, comments, course levelused to search for material through query interface

Archive now hasover 100 presentations, over 300 files, 34 modules7 course topics

EGEE induction Globus ToolKit LCG2 APIs LCG2 Installation and Administration UML for developing web services Web Services

http://www.egee.nesc.ac.uk/trgmat/index.html

Web-based centralised registration & scheduling of coursesSupported by UEDINIntegrated support using database infrastructure

Revision and refinement of material improves its quality

GILDA/GENIUS

GILDA provides a prototyping mechanism to bring applications and communities to grids

GENIUS provides a user friendly portal for introducing users to grids

GILDA/GENIUS provide support to training activities Demo mode, no certificates requiredCertificated users – special VO, portal access to many applicationsDeveloper access to GILDA

Building on Edinburgh’s grid training strengths

Supporting the world

– now Edinburgh?