Universal Grid User Interface (UGI) for Multiple Grids and Clouds

Abstract

This paper describes a practical application of a Universal Grid User Interface (UGI) to control resources with different kinds of middleware. Today, international scientific collaboration requires shared hardware and software resources provided by various kinds of Grid and Cloud middleware. We have designed and implemented a UGI that can provide a seamless environment for end users to use such remote resources (Grid or Cloud resources) with their local resources. The UGI functions include of job handling, manipulating files, general file cataloging, and monitoring jobs. UGI includes the SAGA (Simple API for Grid Applications) architecture and external components that are not supported by SAGA. Our prototype UGI implementation provides a Python API, a command line interface, and a Web interface. We show an example of a UGI application with a Web-based user interface for Particle Therapy Simulation (PTSim).