gUSE users can now run scientific workflows on cloud infrastructures via the CloudBroker platform

Aug. 24 — The Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZTAKI), CloudBroker GmbH, and the SCIentific gateway Based User Support (SCI-BUS) project are happy to announce the first release of the grid User Support Environment (gUSE) providing access to cloud infrastructures by incorporating an interface to the CloudBroker Platform.

gUSE is a framework of high-level services to achieve interoperation between distributed computing infrastructures (DCIs) and user communities. Its WS-PGRADE web portal provides scientific workflow management for both application developers and end users, and supports various DCIs including clusters, service grids, desktop grids and cloud.

The CloudBroker Platform is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application store that allows easily offering and using compute-intensive applications on different cloud infrastructures such as Amazon Web Services and IBM SmartCloud Enterprise. It can be accessed via a web browser or programmatically, and is available in public pay-per-use as well as hosted or in-house versions.

Together, gUSE and the CloudBroker Platform build the technological basis for the SCI-BUS EU FP7 project. Here, scientific gateways for a number of different communities, including proteomics, molecular science, seismology, business processes, medicine, rendering, astrophysics, SMEs, software testing, citizen web and heliophysics, are being built on top of this generic-purpose technology.

The new gUSE release is the first one that incorporates major results of the collaboration of MTA SZTAKI and CloudBroker within the SCI-BUS project. The following corresponding features are available in gUSE now:

• Configuration of one or more CloudBroker Platform installations as DCIs
• Usage of an existing or to be created CloudBroker Platform user account
• Workflows allowing execution of jobs on the CloudBroker Platform
• Selection possibilities for application software and cloud resources during job creation
• CloudBroker Platform job management from WS-PGRADE

Further features such as cost display are in preparation, and will be included in forthcoming releases of gUSE.

Prof. Dr. Peter Kacsuk, head of the Laboratory of Parallel and Distributed Systems (LPDS) at MTA SZTAKI and SCI-BUS project coordinator, states: "With the gUSE interface to the CloudBroker Platform, users can now easily access applications in the cloud as part of their workflows. This will put cloud computing much more into the reach of both scientific gateway providers as well as the scientists themselves." Dr. Wibke Sudholt, CTO of CloudBroker and work package leader in SCI-BUS, agrees: "Running jobs via the CloudBroker Platform offers an alternative for gUSE users who do not have their own cluster or grid infrastructure. The underlying pay-per-use model is particularly attractive for temporary or peak usage, and for the commercial utilization of scientific workflows."

The version number of the gUSE release incorporating the interface to the CloudBroker Platform is 3.5.0. It can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.guse.hu. To use the new cloud facilities within gUSE, access to an installation of the CloudBroker Platform is needed. An account for the platform's public version can be obtained by registering under https://platform.cloudbroker.com. The gUSE-CloudBroker Platform integration will also be on display at the SCI-BUS booth on the EGI Technical Forum in Prague September 17-21, 2012.

MTA SZTAKI: MTA SZTAKI (http://www.sztaki.hu) is a research institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences located in Budapest, Hungary. It performs basic and application-oriented research in the fields of computer science, engineering, information technology, intelligent systems, process control, wide-area networking and multimedia. Its LPDS department is focusing on tools and services for scientific applications, workflows and gateways, and thereby has established MTA SZTAKI as a key research institute in grid technologies. CloudBroker GmbH: CloudBroker (http://www.cloudbroker.com) is a spin-off company of the ETH Zurich located in Zurich, Switzerland. It offers scientific and technical applications as a service in the cloud, for usage in fields such as biology, chemistry, health and engineering. Its flagship product, the CloudBroker Platform, provides immediate and pay-per-use web access to application software as well as compute and storage resources in the cloud at the same time. SCI-BUS: SCI-BUS (http://www.sci-bus.eu) is a European project supported by the FP7 Capacities Programme under contract no. RI-283481. It aims at developing gateway technology and community gateways to provide researchers seamless access to major computing, data and networking infrastructures and services, with focus on scientific workflows. SCI-BUS is a collaboration of 15 consortium members and six subcontractors, supporting 17 gateways in various disciplines.

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Source: CloudBroker GmbH