Portals for Bioinformatics

Nick SharmanmyGrid project manager

30 June 2004www.mygrid.org.uk

Outline

• What is a portal?

• Portal frameworks

• Portal toolkits

• Standards

• myGrid portal development

• Conclusions

What is a portal?Examples• www.netscape.com

• www.yahoo.com

• portal.acm.org

What is a portal?Characteristics• Aggregation

– resources from different providers

• Common context– navigation– Branding

• Personalization– resources tailored to users

• Single sign-on– common access to all resources

Outline

• What is a portal?

• Portal frameworks

• Portal toolkits

• Standards

• myGrid portal development

• Conclusions

Portal frameworksExamples• Apache Jetspeed – Java

– resources are portlets

• uPortal – Java– resources are channels

• CMFPortlets – Zope-based– resources are portlets

Portal frameworksProperties• Separate generic from

specific

• Generic capabilities– Aggregation– Page management– Authentication & authorization– Presentation– Implementation

• Specific capabilities– User-defined– Component interface

Portlet Container

InterfaceInterfaceInterface

Portlet PortletPortlet

Outline

• What is a portal?

• Portal frameworks

• Portal toolkits

• Standards

• myGrid portal development

• Conclusions

Portal toolkitsProperties• Specialized to application areas

– education– research– commerce– …

• Provide:– Portal framework– Customizable portlets– Utilities

Portlet Container

InterfaceInterfaceInterface

Portlet PortletPortlet

Portal toolkitsExamples• CHEF (chefproject.org)

– collaborating groups in education & research– framework: Jetspeed 1

• OGCE (www.collab-ogce.org) – Grid service provision– framework: CHEF

• CourseWork (coursework.stanford.edu/) – education– framework: Oracle/own

Outline

• What is a portal?

• Portal frameworks

• Portal toolkits

• Standards

• myGrid portal development

• Conclusions

StandardsThe alternatives• JSR-168: Java Portlet Specification

– Java Community Process– Built on Servlet specification

• WSRP: Web Service for Remote Portals– OASIS– Portlets are Web Services– Standard port type & messages

StandardsThe architectures

Portlet Container

InterfaceInterfaceInterface

Portal

WSRPWSRPWSRPS

OA

P

SO

AP

SO

AP

StandardsCo-existence• WSRP

Implementation independence

Load sharing Dynamic discovery Network hop Most web services have

programmatic interfaces

• Portlet specification Local control Low call overhead? Fixed configuration Limited load sharing

CustomProxy

WSRPProxy

Portlet Container

InterfaceInterfaceInterface

CustomWSRP

SO

AP

SO

AP

StandardsImplementation• JSR-168

– Frameworks• Apache Pluto (reference implementation)• Apache Jetspeed 2• uPortal• OracleAS Portal

– Toolkits• SAKAI: uPortal + CHEF (www.sakaiproject.org)

• WSRP– Frameworks

• OracleAS Portal

Outline

• What is a portal?

• Portal frameworks

• Portal toolkits

• Standards

• myGrid portal development

• Conclusions

myGrid portal developmentContext and approach• Thesis

– Biologists familiar with web sites– myGrid is middleware

• Antithesis– Middleware is for programs, not people– General-purpose client apps are complex

• Synthesis– Application-specific portals– myGrid portal toolkit

myGrid portal developmentPortal toolkit for bioinformaticians• Target application

– Williams-Bueren Syndrome– Fixed set of workflows

• Extra myGrid portlets– Configurable– Workflow enactment– Workflow scheduling– Completion notification– Results browsing

• Based on CHEF & Jetspeed-1– Portlets for team collaboration:

Outline

• What is a portal?

• Portal frameworks

• Portal toolkits

• Standards

• myGrid portal development

• Conclusions

Conclusions

• Portals are an attractive way of presenting e-science resources to a community

• Portal frameworks & toolkits make portal construction practical

• Portal standards allow unanticipated integrations