Meeting the challenges of astrophysical/cosmological experiments: INAF CTA develops Workflow management system API

The following success story was initiated as the INAF CTA science gateway wished to provide an integrated web-based Workflow Management System (WMS) API for high energy astrophysics.  

This was achieved based on WS-PGRADE/gUSE which was selected due to its:

• Usability via web-based user interfaces;
• Availability, with respect to licensing terms and cost;
• Anticipated long-term support via an active open-source community;
• Ability to deal efficiently with the scales of data, computation and concurrent use required.

Interoperability with other platforms: WS-PGRADE/gUSE seamlessly enables the execution of astronomical and physics workflows on major platforms such as DIRAC (Distributed Infrastructure with Remote Agent Control) INTERWARE, ARC, Globus, gLite, UNICORE(Uniform Interface to Computing Resources), PBS as well as web services or clouds.

Use in new generation astrophysical/cosmological experiments:  Integration with DIRAC INTERWARE is particularly exciting as this is currently being investigated for use in astrophysical/cosmological experiments, with very large processing and storage needs. DIRAC creates a layer between users and resources offering a common interface to a number of heterogeneous providers, integrating them seamlessly and providing interoperability, at the same time as an optimized, transparent and reliable usage of the resources  

What operations does the new WMS enable?

The interface provides functionalities which enable the following useful operations:

• submit: Submits the workflow to the science gateway WMS
• info: access the status of the workflow (workflow statuses include: submitted/running/finished/error/suspended/invalid)
• stop: aborts and deletes the workflow
• download: downloads the produced results of the workflow

Contact

• • Alessandro Costa        INAF-OACT        alessandro [dot] costaoact [dot] inaf [dot] it
  • Eva Sciacca                INAF-OACT        eva [dot] sciaccaoact [dot] inaf [dot] it
  • Fabio Vitello                INAF-OACT        fabio [dot] vitellooact [dot] inaf [dot] it