Data Grid Management Portal

Done as part of Course Curriculum

Web Technology ITM112-05

Project Proposal
by

Nithya Sam
Pradheepa.C
Rashmi Nair
Vimi Soman

Indian Institute of Information

Technology & Management. – Kerala

Trivandrum, Kerala 695 581

October 4, 2006
Contents
1 Executive Summary 2
1.1 Title of the project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Project schedule summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Project deliverables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.5 Project Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.6 Project Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Introduction 3

3 The Problem 4

4 Our approach to solving the problem 5

5 Deliverables 6
5.1 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2 Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.3 Demo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

6 Project Estimation 7
6.1 Software Size and Effort Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2 Human Resource Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.3 Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

7 Project Review Committee 8

List of Figures
1 A complex data access scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

List of Tables
1 Work estimate for each activity under the project. . . . . . . 7
2 Human Resource effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 Milestones for the project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1
1 Executive Summary
1.1 Title of the project
Data Grid Management Portal

1.2 Institute
Indian Institute of Information Technology
and Management Kerala (IIITM-K),
Park Center, Technopark, Kariavottam P.O.
Trivandrum, Kerala - 695 581 INDIA. Tel: +91-471-2700777,
Fax: +91-471-2527568.

1.3 Project schedule summary

The project will have development, deployment, testing and execution of
the portal. This will be completed in two months from project start date.

1.4 Project deliverables

A computational portal for data access management which will have a
built in single sign-on facility along with added security features.

1.5 Project Guides

Dr. Venkatesh Choppella
Mr. Siv Chand Koripella

1.6 Project Members

Nithya Sam
Pradheepa C
Rashmi Nair
Vimi Soman

2
2 Introduction
This document is a proposal for designing a Database Management Por-
tal for managing different databases on a grid. This project is intended to
be used typically by scientists who are interested in activities like compu-
tations, wherein data residing on several databases needs to be accessed
via a web browser along with a single sign-on facility. This project is done
as a part of fulfillment of the course ITM112-05 (Web Technology).

This portal enables scientists to do their work more efficiently and se-
curely, without having to worry too much about how the underlying grid
infrastructure implements the discovery, access and management of re-
sources needed for that computation.

The Grid is an emerging infrastructure that supports the discovery, ac-

cess and use of distributed computational resources. Grid computing re-
flects a conceptual framework rather than a physical resource. Grid ensures
security through authorization and access control tools for supporting de-
centralized control mechanisms.

The scope of this project is to develop and implement a grid framework

for gathering, classifying, and integrating the different distributed data
resources and presenting them to the user in a single, web-based interface.

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3 The Problem
The existing system has several servers accessing databases, hosting
data from different domains. Data from these different database servers
needs to be brought into and then processed on the servers. We would
like to design a portal for managing the access to various databases on
a grid through a single sign-on facility. It should address the following
issues:

Format-independent access: Databases contain data of different formats-

Relational, XML and files. Our portal should provide a uniform interface for
accessing different databases.

Security : Access to databases must be done in a secure manner so as to

prevent loss or damage of data.

Web Services : The access to data should be provided as a set of web

services.

Data services : A set of services should be provided for archiving, reusing,

sharing, integration, and transfer of data.

Portal-based user and administrative interface : The system should pro-

vide a web-based interface for configuring and administrative control of
all services. Individual users of the system should also have a web-based
interface where they can specify, launch, and control jobs.

Interface to legacy systems : The system developed should be able to

interface with existing legacy data and computational systems that are al-
ready running.

4
4 Our approach to solving the problem
This section outlines our approach to the problem described in section 3
Our approach is adapted from Foster et al. [2, Sec. 6], which discusses a
scenario of service-based distributed query processing using OGSA-DAI.
This paper discusses about the coordinated use of multiple databases from
grid middleware. The key idea is to make the data available to the user
through a web service with the help of Grid Distributed Query Processing
Service techniques (GQPS).

The architecture showing the portal, grid data services and the databases
is shown schematically in Figure 1.

Figure 1: A complex data access scenario

In addition to it we have planned to use GridSphere portal framework

[1] for building the front end of the portal. The GridSphere portal frame-
work provides a standards based portal for the easy development of mod-
ular Web components, called portlets. Portlets are defined by a standard
API and provide a model for developing new portal components that can
be shared and exchanged by various portlet containers.

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5 Deliverables
The project will be accomplished in two months from the start date of the
project. The following will be delivered:

• web based portal for data access management

• data access service layer definition based on OGSA standards

Successful completion of this project will lead to the establishment of

a portal for data access management in a distributed environment, which
indeed will provide more oppurtunities for grid applications in real world
scenarios.

5.1 Software
Portal for Data Access Management: This portal will provide users with
a dashboard from where they can query and view data across several
databases. The portal administrator will have privileges to set parame-
ters for database access (location, access parameters, etc). This is the main
component of the software system that will be delivered. The main fea-
tures of this portal are:

Single sign-on: The user will require a single certificate for accessing the
different databases in the system. Passwords will be tied not to indi-
vidual database systems but to the entire system.

Security: User authentication will be supported using Public Key Infras-

tructure. Authorization will be supported by access control lists.

5.2 Documentation
The following documents will be written as part of the deliverables:

Requirements document: A user requirements document will be developed.

Source Code and Design documents: Complete source code of the portal
will be made available, alongwith all design documentation.

Final Report: Final report of the project shall be submitted to the course-
committee evaluating the project.

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 Activity person days
Req. Analysis 7
Research 9
System Design 10
Implementation 15
Testing 5
Documentation 9
Deployment 3
Training 0
Contingency 2
Total 60

Table 1: Work estimate for each activity under the project.

5.3 Demo
There will be a demonstration of the project to the course-committee eval-
uating the project.

6 Project Estimation
6.1 Software Size and Effort Estimates
Code Size: The project will involve integration of advanced grid sys-
tems, including the Globus toolkit with database systems and computa-
tional resources. There is also likely to be programming in Java and other
web application languages. The estimate of the code size is 5000 lines.

Work Estimate: Work in the project will be divided into the activities
shown in Table 1.

6.2 Human Resource Efforts

The project will be coordinated by Dr. Venkatesh Choppella and Mr. Siv
Chand Koripella. The project will be developed by ITM112-05 Project
Group-8 members.

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 Members person hours per day # Days Total person hours
Nithya Sam 2 60 120
Pradheepa C 2 60 120
Rashmi Nair 2 60 120
Vimi Soman 2 60 120
Total 480

Table 2: Human Resource effort

Number Milestone Days

1 Requirements analysis document 10
2 1st quarter report 30
3 2nd quarter report and review 45
4 Demonstration 58
5 Final report and review 60

Table 3: Milestones for the project

6.3 Timeline
The duration of the project will be two months from the start of the project.

7 Project Review Committee

The project will be monitored by the review committee consisting of the
following members.

• Director, IIITM-K Trivandrum

• ITM112-05 Instructor

• ITM112-05 Associate Instructors

• IIITM-K Faculty

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References
[1] Gridsphere portal framework. http://www.gridsphere.org,
2005. Last accessed September 2006.

[2] I Foster, D. Gannon, H. Kishimoto, and Jeffrin J. Von Reich. Open grid
architecture use cases. http://www.ggf.org/documents/GFD.
29.pdf, 2004. Last accessed August 2006.