The DORII Middleware. g-Eclipse

The g-Eclipse project provides an integrated Grid environment for Grid users, Grid operators and Grid developers. The g-Eclipse tool is built on top of the open source Eclipse framework, which is mature and proven extensible platform and well known user tool. g-Eclipse integrated Grid environment allows user-friendly access to Grid resources by making the complexity of the Grid invisible. The architecture of the g-Eclipse framework is made for reuse and extension to allow for easy adaptation by new Grid applications.

The g-Eclipse project addresses three major groups in the Grid domain:

• Grid users will benefit from the Windows-like access to Grid resources. In more detail this is:
  • Grid job management (creating job description files: JSDL, JDL, RSL, g-Eclipse workflows language; editing job description, job submission and monitoring – currently there's support for gLite WMS, gLite CREAM and GRIA job service)
  • Grid data management (GridFTP, LFC, SRM, GRIA data service and Amazon S3 file store)
  • Grid visualization (Grid visualization pipelines based on VTK and GVid)
  • Grid command console (glogin tool and SSH protocol support)
• Grid operators and resource providers will be able to reduce the time-to-service by the Grid management and Grid site configuration tools:
  • Grid information monitoring (BDII, GRIA Information System, Glue schema)
  • Grid infrastructure configuration (Local Queue and Jobs Management – Batch Editor, Site/VO Resource Management, GRIA configuration site)
  • Grid benchmarking and test suite (access to SAM database, GridBench)
  • Management tools for Virtual Organisation
• Grid application developers will reduce the time-to-market for new Grid applications by accelerating the development and deployment cycle:
  • Grid application development (remote debugging, remote building for C/C++, Traceview)
  • Grid application deployment tools (deploying on gLite's Ces)
  • Grid Workflow Builder (XMI workflow description, JDL-DAG for gLite and XScufl for GRIA)

g-Eclipse is build on top of an open source Eclipse platform and reuses its proven design paterns in its own architecture – based on plug-ins modularity.

In the Eclipse world, every plug-in amends the functionality of other plug-ins. This is achieved by the underlying OSGi framework that defines the dependencies between the different plug-ins, and how and when additional plug-ins are activated. Also, Eclipse defines the mechanisms of extension-points and extensions. An extension-point is a definition of how to enhance existing functionality. This way of building software components leads to an extensible architecture with well-defined interfaces.

In g-Eclipse project the framework itself and the functionality on top of it are independent from the underlying Grid middleware. The functionality that is specific to a single type of Grid middleware is added via plug-in mechanisms at runtime. This is reflected in the description of the architecture.

In order to provide a common way of accessing local and remote resources the g-Eclipse framework offers a mechanism for accessing and managing both local elements, i.e. local files and folders, and Grid elements, i.e. either local or remote Grid resources (CE, SEs, etc). This abstraction layer is called the Grid Model. It is responsible for providing basic interfaces and classes that may be extended by specific middleware implementations. Moreover it provides standard and abstract implementations for common types of resources, for instance local files or standard containers that may contain other resources. This makes it easy for developers to build their specific implementations upon the Grid model. In this layer also extension points and APIs to enable the development of new Grid and e-Science applications are available.

g-Eclipse itself delivers exemplary Eclipse plug-ins to enable the middleware independent access to Grid infrastructures building on the top of the abstraction layer of the Grid Model. Those implementations can be referred to when developing support for new middlewares.

clipse projects store all of their source code in public revision control systems. The project hosts its revision control SVN repository. In SVN only the core parts of project are kept. Middleware implementations are stored in CVS which is accessible at.

g-Eclipse binary releases can be download here.

To install g-Eclipse simply download binary releases and unzip on your hard drive. The VO card for DORII is available here

On-line documentation and users' manuals are accessible.

In g-Eclipse application also the Help system is available – it provides information for users as well as for developers willing to write their own functionalities based on g-Eclipse platform.