Virtual Workspaces - VWS

DEPRECATED: The most recent version is TP1.3.3.1

Version TP1.3 - VWS Technology Preview 1.3

This is a technology preview of the virtual machine based Workspace Service (VWS). The workspace service provides a gateway to a set of resources configured with the Xen (2.0.7 or 3.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 one or many Xen-based workspace(s) described by workspace metadata according to a deployment request specifying resource allocation and length of deployment.

2. The Workspace Service, implemented for the GT4 Java container, allows a Grid client to 1) manage a workspace by restarting, stopping, pausing, or destroying it and 2) discover/monitor information about the deployment including networking assignments, deployment state, etc.

3. The Workspace Group Service, implemented for the GT4 Java container, allows a Grid client to manage a group of workspaces by starting, stopping, pausing, or destroying them. When deploying a group via the Factory Service, a group EPR will be returned that can be used to operate on the whole group.

4. The Workspace Status Service implemented for the GT4 Java container allows a Grid client to consult the usage statistics that the service has tracked about it.

See the Features page for general information on VWS functionality. See below for detailed documentation options that explain the functionality in detail.

You can download the software from the downloads page.

Documentation

• Interfaces Guide: explains the capabilities and semantics of the services in detail.
• User Quickstart Guide: for testing or using an existing VWS installation.
• Administrator's Guide: for deploying the services and backend on resources.
• Plugins overview
• Infrequently Asked Questions

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Josh Boverhof, David Grundy, and Ian Gable for their help with this release.

Changes in TP1.3 (vs. TP1.2.3)

• There was a WSDL update, changes and new namespaces.

• Functionality to start multiple workspaces in one request was added, including introduction of the Workspace Group Service.

• Optional accounting functionality was added, including introduction of the Workspace Status Service.

• Configuration enhancements to make service administration easier.

• Various client enhancements including group and status service support, reorganized help output, and new commandline options.

• Various bug fixes.

• All remote interfaces, WSDLs/schemas, have been updated and also have new namespaces. You can examine them directly online at the WSDL and XSD files page (or read the descriptions on the Interfaces section).

• The Workspace Factory Service was extended to support starting a homogenous group of workspaces in one deployment request. A global maximum group size can be specified natively (without needing to use an authorization callout).

• The Workspace Group Service was added to manage groups after deployment. See the group overview on the main interfaces page.

• Hooks for accounting modules were added. These plugins allow you to track clients' used or reserved running time. There are separate reader and writer interfaces for flexibility. A default database backed implementation is provided and enabled by default. By default this implementation includes a periodic write to log files on the system (one for current reservations, another for major events). See Bug 5443.

• The Workspace Status Service was added, it allows a Grid client to consult the usage statistics that the service has tracked about it. See Bug 5444.

• Some configurations have been added, changed name or changed location in the JNDI configuration file, see this migration section of the administrator's guide for details.

• Resource selection now favors VMMs not in use. The previous selection process accepted the first VMM with enough memory which could result in a situation where e.g. two workspaces are running on one VMM but no workspaces are running on another.

• Resource pool configurations can now be adjusted without resetting the database, see this migration section of the administrator's guide for details.

• Networking address pool configurations can now be adjusted without resetting the database, see this migration section of the administrator's guide for details.

• Resolved Bug 5441: Add functionality for late network binding to client and service.

• Resolved Bug 5442: Move persistence information to its own subdirectory. All information is not stored under $GLOBUS_LOCATION/var/workspace_service/ instead of various subdirectories of $GLOBUS_LOCATION/var itself.

• Host certificate transfer functionality was removed. The association configuration and WSDL has changed accordingly.

• Resolved Bug 5415: WorkspacePersistenceDB not updated after workspace --shutdown

• Resolved Bug 5345: resource not destroyed correctly when time expires and shutdown method is "trash"

• Asynchronous notifications from workspace-control (propagation events) are handled more reliably.

• The toplevel build file includes many new convenience targets, including more control over what is deployed/undeployed and more control over the different kinds of persistence information.

• The build files now do not proceed if your JDK is an earlier version than 1.4.

• The help system was organized, run the client with "-h" to see the definitive list and explanation of features old and new.

• The client can subscribe and listen to many workspaces at a time after deploying a group. As this can be quite verbose for large groups, there are two new options to control subscription output verbosity. See the "-h" text.

• There is a numnodes argument that will control how many workspaces will be requested during the create operation. If there is a NodeNumber element in a given deployment request file, this argument will override that. For more about group support, see the Interfaces section.

• The client can now run management commands using both regular and group workspace EPRs (it looks at which it is dealing with).

• Resolved Bug 5441: Add functionality for late network binding to client and service. In the default case where subscriptions are desired, the client will notice if networking is missing and requery for it when the workspace(s) move to the Running state.

• Resolved Bug 5445: various reference client improvements.

• There is a new workspace-status client for querying accounting information. See Bug 5444.

• The sample XML (metadata, resource request, etc) files included with the client have been updated and more samples have been added.

• The client build now checks that the sample XML (metadata, resource request, etc) files validate against their respective schemas. If your ant installation does not include the xmlvalidate task, these checks are skipped.

• Note: a previously used TP1.2.3 configuration file for workspace-control will still work because of the nature of these changes. See this migration section of the administrator's guide for details.

• Resolved Bug 5360: destroy log shows dhcp/ebtables backout problem

• install.py handles user groups better and has an improved --onlyverify mode

• Removed unecessary configurations from sample worksp.conf file.

• ebtables-config.sh rule backout handles an additional corner case

• JNDI class discovery is done differently, this may affect you if you have alternate implementations of any module or plugin interface. A new workspace Initializable interface can be used. See the org.globus.workspace.Locator class.

• Message intake and initial validation support is now implemented as a plugin, see the org.globus.workspace.service.binding.BindingAdapter interface.

• The default scheduler's "node picking" support is now implemented as a plugin, see the org.globus.workspace.scheduler.defaults.SlotManagement interface.

• AllocateAndConfigure (association) support is now implemented as a plugin, see the org.globus.workspace.network.AssociationAdapter interface.

• New optional AccountingEventAdapter and AccountingReaderAdapter plugins, see the org.globus.workspace.accounting package.

• The optional creation-time authorization callout interface was altered to include group requests as well as the caller's accrued used and reserved running minutes (if an accounting reader is running).