SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS

San Diego, CALIF. — Computational scientists will soon be spending more time conducting research and less time learning to use high-end computers, thanks to the SDSC GridPort Toolkit, a collection of technologies designed to streamline the development of science and education portals to the computational grid. SDSC GridPort, several prototype applications, and its built-in wireless access capabilities will be demonstrated at SC2000 in Dallas, Texas, November 6-9.

SDSC GridPort ( http://gridport.sdsc.edu/ ) is a software development toolkit of standard, portable technologies with which developers can quickly create Web interfaces to scientific applications. Such application portals can then be used to securely access high-end computing resources securely from any Web-connected device, including wireless handhelds. Any application portal built on this toolkit automatically inherits these “HPC anywhere” capabilities.

“GridPort brings the ideal of the computational grid a huge leap closer to reality,” said Sid Karin, director of SDSC and the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI). “With GridPort, application portal developers can worry a lot less about the underlying grid technologies and more quickly put researchers on the path to tomorrow’s scientific discoveries.”

The SDSC Computational Science Portals group will be demonstrating GridPort and Web-accessible applications at the SC2000 exhibition, in the NPACI research exhibit (Booth R904) and as part of eSCape 2000, which features the integration of high-end computing and wireless technologies.

The demonstrations will include applications that have already been built on GridPort:

— The NPACI HotPage ( http://hotpage.npaci.edu/ ) increases the effectiveness of computational scientists using NPACI’s HPC resources by providing a unified access point for all of the high-end resources at NPACI. With a single login, researchers can run codes, check system status, and manage files through a Web interface.

— GAMESS ( http://gridport.npaci.edu/GAMESS/ ) is a code widely used in computational chemistry research. Through the GAMESS portal, chemists can perform computations on their data sets with any of the NPACI platforms that currently support GAMESS.

— LAPK ( http://gridport.npaci.edu/LAPK/ ), developed at the University of Southern California Laboratory for Applied Pharmacokinetics, is a resource that allows physicians to study and control pharmacokinetic systems and to customize individualized drug therapy. The GridPort interface means that the tool can be applied by many more physicians.

Researchers interested in getting a GridPort account for developing your own computational science portal should visit the GridPort Web site for more information ( http://gridport.npaci.edu/Accounts/ ).

“All portals built on top of GridPort allow researchers to run codes, manipulate data and files, and otherwise use components of the computational grid through a Web interface,” said Mary Thomas, manager of the Computational Science Portals group at SDSC. “The GridPort project at SDSC employs technologies and infrastructure that spans many of the groups and projects within SDSC and across NPACI.”

GridPort is based on advanced Web, security, and metasystem technologies to provide secure, interactive services. GridPort provides portal developers an interface to an infrastructure that integrates grid technologies developed by NPACI, the National Computational Science Alliance, and the Grid community. These technologies include CA Client, MyProxy, Globus, the Grid Security Infrastructure, and the Grid Index Information Service. Future enhancements will integrate the Network Weather Service and SDSC Storage Resource Broker. For more information, see the GridPort Web site.

SDSC is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego, and the leading-edge site of the NPACI ( http://www.npaci.edu/ ). SDSC is funded by the National Science Foundation through NPACI and other federal agencies, the State and University of California, and private organizations.

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