Experiment Management with

Microsoft Project

Gregor von Laszewski

Leor E. Dilmanian

http://www.cyberaide.org

Rochester Institute of Technology

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 Outline
• Introduction
• Cyberaide.org
• Management Requirements of e-Science
• Microsoft Project for Managing Tasks
• Extending Microsoft Project for e-Science
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements

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 Introduction - Background
• E-Science is • Experiment Management
computationally or data is the management of a
intensive science, carried large number of
out in a distributed experiments over
computing environment. Cyberinfrastructure

• Cyberinfrastructure is a
research environment
supporting advanced data
acquisition and information
processing services over
the internet.

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 Introduction – Motivation
• There is a high entry barrier into Grid computing.

• Experiment Management on the Grid or Cyberinfrastructure is

a complicated affair.

• Issues include:
– Application Design
– Scheduling of Large Scale Resources
– Orchestration of Activity
– Monitoring Execution and Quality of Service
– Data Acquisition

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 eScience Experiment Management
Social Networks
Clouds
Globus
(Condor,Unicore, …)

Queuing
Systems

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 Cyberaide
• is a framework
used to simplify
Cyberinfrastructure
development.

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 Microsoft Project
• Is used for planning a project.

• Workflow – a set of operations which contain the following:

– Task – a unit of work.

– Dependency – among two tasks, used to specify ordering.

– Resource – people or machines used to carry out work.

– Assignment /Mapping – of resources to tasks, to execute the

workflow.
• This makes it a job

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 Source: Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is used to by project managers to manage
resources and tasks. Shown above: a Finance and Accounting
System Implementation project.

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 E-Science Requirements
• Focus on Science • Integrated User Experience
– Well known, familiar user – Design
interface • Easily specify a distributed
– Easy to Navigate application.
– Effectively manage large – Execution
volumes of information • Seamless scheduling and
– Advanced features: execution on the Grid.
• Time based workflows – Monitoring
with soft deadlines. • Progress & Quality of
• Calendar & resource Service.
views, toolbars, forms &
graphical indicators…

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 Cyberaide Project
• Cyberaide contains a prototype called Cyberaide Project.
– It uses the Microsoft Project software package as an
elementary component.
– Based on the methodology of project management
software.
– It is used to…
• Design a high level application.
• Execute the workflow on the Grid.
• Track progress and Quality of Service during execution.

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 Cyberaide Project
Microsoft Project

Task Table Gantt Chart /

Track Workflow
Manage Workflow

Proxy Initialization
Console Window

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 Implementation
• Technologies
– Visual Studio Professional 2008
– C# and Visual Basic
– Microsoft Project 2007 Professional (client)
– Microsoft Project Primary Interoperability
Assembly
– Java CoG Kit
– Apache CLI

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 Internal Design

The Cyberaide Project Class

• Console application written in C#
• Controls execution
• Command registrations

Command Interfaces
• Uniform way to specify a
command

Command Classes
addTask, delete, addResource, etc.

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 MS Javascript
Project
Integration with other

Client
Cyberaide components
C# Ruby Python Java
An easy client interface
provides access through
a mediator service to a
Mediator & Abstractions
variety of different
services.
Social
Grid Cloud
Networks

Services TeraGrid
Amazon Faceboo
Cloud k

Globus iGoogle

GPIR,
NWS, …

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 Commands
• Workflow Manipulation:
– Add/Delete/Edit task
– Add/Delete Dependency
– Add/Remove Resource
• Workflow Execution
– Run-all
• Import/Export in JSON format
– Load (will also merge)
– Save

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 Example - Starting

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 Example – Design a Project

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 Example – Execute & Observe

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 Example - Result

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 Example - Result

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 Summary
• Task Table
• Resource Mapping -> Jobs
• Integration with TeraGrid
– through CoG Kit to TeraGrid
– We have are developing a Grid mediator (e.g. a
Super Gram Service)

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 Conclusion
• Cyberaide Project can be used to design applications in e-
Science
– Supports the process of developing, executing and monitoring workflows
for the Grid

• Familiarity, simplicity and user friendliness are the major

considerations
– Useful for the casual Grid user familiar with or using Microsoft Project

• Spend less time learning software, and more time making

discovery
– Increases productivity

laszewski@gmail.com
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 References
[1] G. von Laszewski and L. E. Dilmanian, “e-Science Project and Experiment Management with Microsoft Project," Rochester
Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, laszewski@gmail.com. [Online]. Available:
http://cyberaide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/papers/08-project/vonLaszewski-08-project.pdf
[2] G. von Laszewski and M. Hategan, “Grid Workflow - An Integrated Approach,” in Technical Report., Argonne National
Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Ave., Argonne, IL 60440, 2005. [Online]. Available:
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/gregor/papers/vonLaszewski-workflow-draft.pdf
[3] I. Taylor, E. Deelman, D. Gannon, and M. Shields, Eds., Workflows for e-Science: Scientific Workflows for Grids. Springer,
2007, iSBN: 978-1-84628-519-6.
[4] J. Frey, T. Tannenbaum, I. Foster et al., “Condor-G: A Computation Management Agent for Multi-Institutional Grids,”
Proceedings of the Tenth IEEE Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC10), 2001.
[5] G. von Laszewski, J. Gawor, P. Lane, N. Rehn, M. Russell, and K. Jackson, “Features of the Java Commodity Grid Kit,”
Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, vol. 14, pp. 1045–1055, 2002. [Online]. Available:
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/gregor/papers/vonLaszewski--cog-features.pdf
[6] G. von Laszewski, B. Ruscic, K. Amin, P. Wagstrom, S. Krishnan, and S. Nijsure, “A Framework for Building Scientific
Knowledge Grids Applied to Thermochemical Tables,” The International Journal of High Performance Computing
Applications, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 431–447, Winter 2003. [Online]. Available:
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/gregor/papers/vonLaszewski--knowledge-grid.pdf
[7] “Grid Workflow :: Workflow Composition Tools,” Web Page. [Online]. Available:
www.gridworkflow.org/snips/gridworkflow/space/Workflow+Composition+Tools
[8] G. von Laszewski, “Java CoG Kit Workflow Concepts,” Journal of Grid Computing, Jan. 2006,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10723-005-9013-5. [Online]. Available: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/gregor/papers/
vonLaszewski-workflow-taylor-anl.pdf
[9] G. von Laszewski, A. J. Younge, X. He, and F. Wang, “GridShell: Interactive Task Management for Grid and Cluster
Computing,” (submitted for review), Sep. 2008.

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 Acknowledgements
• NSF NMI
• NSF DDDAS

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