Universal Acessibility to the Grid via Metagrid Infrastructure

1. Universal Acessibility to the Grid via Metagrid Infrastructure Soha Maad, Brian Coghlan, Eamonn Kenny, Gabriele Pierantoni, Oliver Lyttleton, David O'Callaghan

2. About Universal Accessibility • rooted in the concept of Design for All in Human Computer Interaction About UA Relevance • addresses accessibility problems in human interaction with software applications and telematic services. Challenges Solutions Proposal

3. About Universal Accessibility • is supported by various development methodologies and platforms. About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

4. About Universal Accessibility • Various application domains benefited from research and development in this area including: About UA Relevance • interactive television and media • children educational games Challenges • interfaces for the physically handicapped Solutions • interfaces for various devices Proposal

5. Infrastructure Devices Users Relevance to the Grid • Grid applications involving social interaction About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

6. G2C G2B G2G Infrastructure Devices Medicine Users Users Challenges • Open-ended interactivity • Access for the disabled • Generalised universal access: About UA Relevance • e-hospital (e.g. remote consultancy, e-surgery) • e-govt (e.g. G2B, G2C, G2G) Challenges • e-business (e.g. collaborative engineering) Solutions Proposal

7. Grid Infrastructure Devices Devices Users Challenges • Direct access to remote external devices at the grid boundaries About UA • Now being solved for each of N middlewares rather than just once Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

8. Infrastructure Infrastructure Devices Users Challenges • Develop an infrastructure for: About UA serving the distant minority coping with cultural diversity Relevance eLearning, independent of geographical location Challenges serving enterprise, e.g. management of data centres Solutions Proposal

9. the lack of an underlying infrastructure similar to that of a desktop OS • the dilemma between hiding the grid versus making it more transparent • the software engineering practice adopted in grid middleware development • Why needed? To hide user I/O Plug-n-play of devices • Why hide? To simplify • Why transparent? To customise for user access • Why a problem? Bottom-up middleware, not driven by apps Challenges About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

10. Current Partial Solutions [1] • the development of grid middleware supporting interaction with heterogeneous mobile devices [Jameel et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

11. Current Partial Solutions [2] • wrapping the computational and resource intensive grid tasks, to allow the accessibility to the grid via hand held devices [Kiani et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

12. Current Partial Solutions [3] • the development of common web-based grid application portals allowing the applications' users to customize their interfaces to the grid [Lindemann et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

13. Current Partial Solutions [4] • Enhancement for grid interactivity [Rosmanith et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

14. Current Partial Solutions [5] • the development of application models for the grid [Wu et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

15. While each of these efforts towards universal accessibility to the grid does address the problem to some extent, none of them enables a complete solution. Current Partial Solutions - Summary About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

16. Objective Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • to host solutions to all issues related to universal accessibility to the grid Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

17. Context Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • used so far in the context of inter-grid interoperability • extends the notion of interoperability to embrace grid application interoperability (interactivity and universal accessibility). Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

18. Dependencies Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • heavily based on existing grid middleware services and architecture: • EGEE • Globus • CrossGrid • GridPP • GGF • hosts one or more target grid techologies (hosting WebCom, LCG2 and GT4) • supports its own services Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

19. Transparent Services Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • transparent grid filesystem: • supports all forms of data access (r/w/x) across arbitrary grid middleware • provides a logical user view of grid data (e.g. supports easy integration of the data centre in the enterprise) • discover data during interaction in media applications. • can improve the utility of the EGEE middleware. Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

20. Metagrid Services Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • MetaGrid Submission Service (MSS) • MetaGrid Broker (MB) • MetaGrid Security Exchange (MSX) • MetaGrid Job Exchange (MJX) Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

21. Value-Added Services Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • user interaction services • special purpose discovery services to support various forms of interaction especially in media applications • and intelligent interpreters to support e-Government data semantics. Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

22. User User Centric Globus EGEE Metagrid Engine GridPP Other Middleware Metagrid Infrastructure About UA • Places the user within the metagrid environment rather than in any one target grid environment Relevance Challenges • The user obtains universal accessibility via the metagrid services, and the target grid technologies are relieved of the need to support direct user and device interactions. Solutions Proposal