Portal Access to HPC Systems at JSC
Introduction
A Portal is a web site or web service that provides functionality to users. Usually it offers a graphical user interface that allows users to access resources, tools, applications, and data. Many portals are customized for a specific user community. Sometimes portals are named science gateways or scientific gateways.
Development
The European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) defined four classes of portals that offer access to compute resources. The classification differentiates between the source of the application, parameters, and data:
| Portal Class | Application | Parameters | Data |
| Simple one-click | provided by portal | provided by portal | provided by portal |
| Parameter | provided by portal | chosen from enumberable and limited set | chosen from repository vetted by the portal |
| Data processing | provided by portal | chosen from enumberable and limited set | provided by user |
| Job management | provided by user | provided by user | provided by user |
For all four portal classes the portal user who launches an application on one of the HPC systems at JSC has to have a valid account on the HPC system.
Principal Investigators (PIs) who received a computing time grant for an HPC system at JSC can apply for (additional) user accounts.
Portals that offer access to the HPC systems at JSC have to use UNICORE to launch and manage jobs or access data on the HPC systems.
If you want to build a portal or extend your portal to access HPC systems at JSC, please contact the UNICORE Helpdesk. We will support you in mapping of users and accounts, and the integration of UNICORE WSRF services, REST API, or command line client for job and data management into your portal.
Operation
Portals that offer access to HPC systems at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) have to meet specific conditions:
- Each user has to have a valid account on the HPC system.
- Each user has to be identified individually, i.e. no pooling of portal users to one or more accounts on the HPC system is allowed.
- The authentication service of the portal complies with the latest state-of-the-art security mechanisms and utilises strong user authentication.
- Every security incident on the portal has to be reported immediately to FZJ-CERT.
- The portal operator has to sign an agreement that specifies the above-mentioned conditions.
