SimpleGrid toolkit: Enabling efficient learning and development of TeraGrid Science Gateway

Abstract

Science gateways have become an important cyberenvironment modality to bridge domain applications and cyberinfrastructure, which is fundamental to make cyberinfrastructure integral and effective to the practice of advancing science and engineering. However, it remains a significant challenge to learn science gateway technologies and develop a science gateway because science gateway technologies are still actively evolving and often include a large number of sophisticated components. Some of these components must be designed to fit within the legacy methods through which scientists from a particular domain use conventional computation tools. This paper establishes a generic toolkit – SimpleGrid for learning and developing science gateways based on a service-oriented architecture using a component-based approach that allows flexible separation and integration of the components between domain applications and cyberinfrastructure in the process of learning and development of science gateways. The paper presents the design and implementation of SimpleGrid and illustrates our experience of using SimpleGrid in a tutorial to teach TeraGrid science gateway based on a well-known application (spatial interpolation) in the field of geographic information science.