Universal Acessibility to the Grid via Metagrid Infrastructure Soha Maad, Brian Coghlan, Eamonn Kenny, Gabriele Pierantoni, Oliver Lyttleton, David O'Callaghan

About Universal Accessibility rooted in the concept of Design for All in Human Computer Interaction About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal addresses accessibility problems in human interaction with software applications and telematic services.

About Universal Accessibility is supported by various development methodologies and platforms. About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

About Universal Accessibility Various application domains benefited from research and development in this area including: About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal interactive television and media children educational games interfaces for the physically handicapped interfaces for various devices

Relevance to the Grid Grid applications involving social interaction Infrastructure Users Devices About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Infrastructure Users Devices Challenges Medicine About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal Users Open-ended interactivity Access for the disabled Generalised universal access: G2G G2B G2C e-hospital (e.g. remote consultancy, e-surgery) e-govt (e.g. G2B, G2C, G2G) e-business (e.g. collaborative engineering)

Infrastructure Users Devices Challenges Direct access to remote external devices at the grid boundaries Devices About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal Now being solved for each of N middlewares rather than just once

Infrastructure Users Devices Challenges Develop an infrastructure for: About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal Infrastructure serving the distant minority coping with cultural diversity eLearning, independent of geographical location serving enterprise, e.g. management of data centres

Challenges About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal the lack of an underlying infrastructure similar to that of a desktop OS Why needed? To hide user I/O Plug-n-play of devices the dilemma between hiding the grid versus making it more transparent Why hide? To simplify Why transparent? To customise for user access the software engineering practice adopted in grid middleware development Why a problem? Bottom-up middleware, not driven by apps

Current Partial Solutions [1] the development of grid middleware supporting interaction with heterogeneous mobile devices [Jameel et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Current Partial Solutions [2] wrapping the computational and resource intensive grid tasks, to allow the accessibility to the grid via hand held devices [Kiani et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Current Partial Solutions [3] the development of common web-based grid application portals allowing the applications' users to customize their interfaces to the grid [Lindemann et al, 2005] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Current Partial Solutions [4] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal Enhancement for grid interactivity [Rosmanith et al, 2005]

Current Partial Solutions [5] About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal the development of application models for the grid [Wu et al, 2005]

Current Partial Solutions - Summary About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal While each of these efforts towards universal accessibility to the grid does address the problem to some extent, none of them enables a complete solution.

Metagrid Infrastructure to host solutions to all issues related to universal accessibility to the grid Objective About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Metagrid Infrastructure used so far in the context of inter-grid interoperability extends the notion of interoperability to embrace grid application interoperability (interactivity and universal accessibility). Context About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Metagrid Infrastructure heavily based on existing grid middleware services and architecture: – –EGEE – –Globus – –CrossGrid – –GridPP – –GGF hosts one or more target grid techologies (hosting WebCom, LCG2 and GT4) supports its own services Dependencies About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Metagrid Infrastructure transparent grid filesystem: – –supports all forms of data access (r/w/x) across arbitrary grid middleware – –provides a logical user view of grid data (e.g. supports easy integration of the data centre in the enterprise) – –discover data during interaction in media applications. – –can improve the utility of the EGEE middleware. Transparent Services About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Metagrid Infrastructure MetaGrid Submission Service (MSS) MetaGrid Broker (MB) MetaGrid Security Exchange (MSX) MetaGrid Job Exchange (MJX) Metagrid Services About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Metagrid Infrastructure user interaction services special purpose discovery services to support various forms of interaction especially in media applications and intelligent interpreters to support e-Government data semantics. Value-Added Services About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal

Metagrid Infrastructure Places the user within the metagrid environment rather than in any one target grid environment User Centric About UA Relevance Challenges Solutions Proposal User MetagridEngine EGEE GridPP Globus OtherMiddleware The user obtains universal accessibility via the metagrid services, and the target grid technologies are relieved of the need to support direct user and device interactions.