e-Science project and experiment management with Microsoft Project
Abstract
The design, execution, and monitoring of challenging
scientific applications is often a complex affair. To cope with
the issue, several tools and frameworks have been designed and
put into use. However, the entry barrier to using these tools
productively is high, and may hinder the progress of many
scientists or non-experts that develop workflows infrequently. As
part of the Cyberaide framework, a workflow tool called Grid
Manager had been developed and integrated using the Microsoft
Project software package as an elementary component. The
advantages of using such a tool are discussed in this paper.
Microsoft Project is a user friendly project management tool
that is being used in a new context. It is being used to design and
monitor the execution of Grid based projects. The motivation
for this choice is that many scientists are already familiar
with Microsoft Project. Grid Manager enables seamless access
to and execution over computational Grids, such as the NSF
sponsored TeraGrid. Our framework also allows integration
with other resources, including Microsoft Windows HPC Server
2008 (HPC) clusters. We test our hypothesis of usability while
evaluating the tool as part of several graduate level courses
taught in the field of Grid and Cloud computing.
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