Virtual Workspaces - VWS

DEPRECATED: The most recent version is TP1.3.3.1

Version TP1.2 - Virtual Machines Technology Preview 1.2

This is a technology preview of the virtual machine based Workspace Service. The workspace service provides a gateway to a set of resources configured with the Xen (2.0.7 or 3.0.x) implementation of virtual machines.

The infrastructure is composed of:

1. The Workspace Factory Service implemented for the GT4 Java container that allows a grid client to deploy a Xen-based workspace (described by workspace metadata and a Xen image) according to a deployment request specifying resource allocation and length of deployment.

2. The Workspace Service implemented for the GT4 Java container that allows a Grid client to manage a workspace by starting, stopping, pausing, or destroying it.

Workspace metadata and the interfaces for the two Grid Services are discussed in the interfaces section. The Administrator's Guide discusses the installation of the service and the required backend component.

A discussion of the available plugins and an authorization overview is in this section.

The sample service client is distributed with several sample metadata files, deployment requests, and sample client invocations. These have inline comments and can be reviewed and modified to quickly try out some of the major features.

You can download the software from the downloads page.

Changelog vs. TP1.1.1

• Added support for a resource pool model that allows one grid service to manage a large group of VMMs, sending incoming workspace deployment requests to appropriate VMM nodes for instantiation.

• To support the resource pool model, managed file propagation support was added to move files associated with workspaces to and from the resource pool nodes and storage nodes. The current choices are GridFTP and SCP.

• An optional RFT staging plugin is available to allow a deployment request to include a stage in and/or stage out directive. This is to manage client file movement in the grid context as opposed to the managed, inter-site propagation functionality.

• To support host based authorization (which include a reverse IP check in its algorithm), IP pool entries may now optionally include matching certificate and key pairs that are moved on to the VM when it is allocated a particular networking address.

• New functionality is supported: create-paused, reboot. A choice of default shutdown method when the maximum running time has been reached: normal, trashed.

• Logging choices for both the grid service and workspace-control program have been significantly enhanced.

• The VMM workspace-control program has a new installer that will install the executable and create all of its necessary work directories and will review all directory and file permissions for safety (and correct problems if instructed to).

• The VMM workspace-control program now employs a sudo callout to do its privileged work.

• The VMM workspace-control program has been enhanced to isolate user files from each other and is set up with a safe environment for image altering. A new /opt/workspace hierarchy is the default installation option but it allows for flexible choices.

• The grid service portion has been significantly improved internally for asynchronous event handling, scalability and the ability to replace more of its subsystems with alternate or improved implementations.