1. 1 SIGCSE 2008 Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education Thursday, March 13, 2008 Towards a Top-Down Approach to Teaching an Undergraduate Grid Computing Course Barry Wilkinson University of North Carolina Charlotte Clayton Ferner University of North Carolina Wilmington

2. 2 “The grid virtualizes heterogeneous geographically disperse resources” from "Introduction to Grid Computing with Globus," IBM Redbooks Grid Computing  Using geographically distributed interconnected computers together for computing and resource sharing.  Usually, involves teams working together on a common goal.  Crosses multiple administrative domains.

3. 3 North Carolina State-wide undergraduate course  Taught jointly: UNC-Charlotte and UNC Wilmington.  First taught 2004. Again in 2005 and 2007.  Uses North Carolina’s televideo network NCREN, which connects universities and colleges across state.  Distributed computing resources at several universities form Grid computing platform.  14 Universities and colleges participated in total.

4. 4 Participating Sites Western Carolina University UNC Greensboro Appalachian State University UNC Asheville Winston-Salem State University UNC Chapel Hill NC State University NC Central University Lenoir Rhyne College UNC Wilmington Elon University UNC Pembroke UNC Charlotte Wake Tech. Comm. College © World Sites Atlas (sitesatlas.com) SOUTH CAROLINA VIRGINIA TENNESSEE GEORGIA NORTH CAROLINA

5. 5 Grid Course  This course was probably the first such course in the country, and possibly in the world, to involve undergraduate students and so many distributed sites using large-scale teleconferencing facilities and a truly distributed grid infrastructure.

6. 6 Grid Computing Course Participants 14 North Carolina institutions (Total 2004 - 2007):  Appalachian State University  Elon University  North Carolina Central University  North Carolina State University  University of North Carolina at Asheville  University of North Carolina Chapel Hill  University of North Carolina at Charlotte  University of North Carolina at Greensboro  University of North Carolina at Pembroke  University of North Carolina at Wilmington  Western Carolina University  Winston-Salem State University  Lenoir Rhyne College,  Wake Technical Community College. Three suites involved in experimental Spring 2007 class described here.

7. 7 View of three sites participating in redesigned Spring 2007 course

8. 8 Assignment 1Using grid computing portal Assignment 2Using the grid through a command line. Assignment 3Using a scheduler (Condor-G) Assignment 4Installing GT4 core. Creating, deploying, and testing a GT4 Grid service. Assignment 5Installing and using GridNexus workflow editor to create and execute workflows. Assignment 6Implementing a portlet with OGCSE2/Gridsphere portal. Assignment 7MPI assignment on grid Mini-projectDeveloping grid computing assignment Programming Assignments (Spring 2007) Assignments 4, 5, and 6 require students to install significant software packages on their computer.

9. 9 Keeping to assignment schedule  Each assignment allocated 1-2 weeks to complete. Posted three dates: – Date assignment was set – Date that students had to report any system problems that were preventing them from proceeding – Date due  Turned out that in Spring 2007, no one reported systems problems and each assignment could move forward on schedule.

10. 10 User Registration portlet (PURSe) Assignment 1

11. 11 Getting an account Go to portal and select “register” New User Course on-line registration form CA/System Administrator Create accounts, set access control, sign certificate, … Fill in form Provide password and other information Email Request Confirmation Acknowledgement Contact other grid resource administrators if users requests account on their resource

12. 12 Course portal (OGCSE2/Gridsphere) Portal provides single sign-on to all grid resources.

13. 13 Checking proxy

14. 14 File management

15. 15 Third-party file transfers

16. 16 Job submission

17. 17 Using the grid through a command line.  Install ssh client (e.g. putty) if necessary  Set up your credentials – grid-cert-request – Email system administrator to sign certificate  Create proxy  Submit various jobs – globusrun-ws – Some with xml job description files – locally and using remote resources Assignment 2

18. 18 Using a scheduler (Condor-G)  Create proxy  Check the status of the Condor pool  Create a test submit description text file  Submitting jobs and checking its status  Using different Condor universes Assignment 3

19. 19 Installing GT4 core. Creating, deploying, and testing a GT4 Grid service  Install GT 4 core and associated software – JDK 1.4.2+ – Ant 1.5.1+ – Python 2.4+ – Globus 4.0 core – Set environment variables  Testing installation – Start container globus-start-container –nosec  Create, deploy, and test simple GT4 Grid Services – Deplore prewritten service and test with client – Add Functionality to Service – Need to handle WSDL (XML) and other files Assignment 4

20. 20 Installing and using GridNexus workflow editor to create and execute workflows  Install GridNexus  Create Web/Grid service Workflows  Submitting job to GRAM from workflow Assignment 5

21. 21 Implementing portlets with OGCSE2/Gridsphere portal toolkit  Install Gridsphere and associated software – Java 6 SDK – ant – tomcat 5.5.20 – Set environment variables  Install Gridsphere – First start Tomcat  Create portlets – Prewritten odd-even portlet Installation involves handling deployment descriptor files.. – Portlet to add, subtract, multiply, divide two numbers. Assignment 6

22. 22 What student will see once Gridsphere fully installed on their computer

23. 23 Gridsphere student portlet design Assignment 7

24. 24 Student giving min-project presentation

25. 25 Experiences with Spring 2007 revision  Students responded positively to using their own computers that were under their direct control.  Some students did have problems with their installations but nothing that could not resolved quickly such as not setting paths or using the wrong version of the software.  Some Grid computing assignments still have to be done on a Grid platform, such as submitting and scheduling jobs, but using personal computers where possible simplifies code development.

26. 26 Avoiding problems  It require immense work to prepare for a hands-on Grid computing course.  Critical that all assignments are fully tested prior to the start of class and that all computer systems are reliable and the software maintained.  Assignments went much smoother by requiring students to use personal computers when possible.

27. 27 Acknowledgements Support for the work described here was provided by the National Science Foundation, and University of North Carolina Office of the President. National Science Foundation, “Introducing Grid Computing into the Undergraduate Curricula,” ref. DUE 0410667, PI: A. B. Wilkinson, co-PI’s Mark Holliday and D. Luginbuhl, 2004-2007, Additional Funding,” ref. DUE 0533334, PI: B. Wilkinson, 2005- 2007 University of North Carolina Office of President, “A Consortium to Promote Computational Science and High Performance Computing,” PI: B. Kurtz (Appalachian State University) co-PIs: B. Berg, W. Campbell, W. Hightower, M. Holliday, J. Hollingworth, R. Hull, D-H Hwang, S. Lea, Y. Li, S. V. Providence, D. Powell, R. Shore, S. Suthaharan, R. Tashakkori, and B. Wilkinson, 2004-2006. University of North Carolina Office of President, “Fostering Undergraduate Research Partnerships through a Graphical User Environment for the North Carolina Computing Grid,” PI: R. Vetter (UNC-Wilmington), co-PIs: L. Bartolotii, D. R. Berman, R. Boston, J. Brown, C. Ferner, T. Hudson, T. Janicki, N. Martin, M. McClelland, J. Porter, A. Stapleton, and B. Wilkinson, 2004-2006.

28. 28 Questions? More Information: Spring 2007 Course Home Page http://www.cs.uncc.edu/~abw/Gridcourse