The VISPA internet platform for outreach, education and scientific research in various experiments

21st International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics

物理学;计算机科学

Van Asseldonk, D.^1 ; Erdmann, M.^1 ; Fischer, B.^1 ; Fischer, R.^1 ; Glaser, C.^1 ; Heidemann, F.^1 ; Mü'Ller, G.^1 ; Quast, T.^1 ; Rieger, M.^1 ; Urban, M.^1 ; Welling, C.^1

Physics Institute 3A, RWTH Aachen University, Germany^1

关键词: Analysis frameworks;    Computing infrastructures;    Graphical interface;    Heterogeneous users;    Outreach activity;    Scientific researches;    University teaching;    User acceptance;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/664/3/032031/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/664/3/032031

学科分类：计算机科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

VISPA provides a graphical front-end to computing infrastructures giving its users all functionality needed for working conditions comparable to a personal computer. It is a framework that can be extended with custom applications to support individual needs, e.g. graphical interfaces for experiment-specific software. By design, VISPA serves as a multipurpose platform for many disciplines and experiments as demonstrated in the following different use-cases. A GUI to the analysis framework OFFLINE of the Pierre Auger collaboration, submission and monitoring of computing jobs, university teaching of hundreds of students, and outreach activity, especially in CERN's open data initiative. Serving heterogeneous user groups and applications gave us lots of experience. This helps us in maturing the system, i.e. improving the robustness and responsiveness, and the interplay of the components. Among the lessons learned are the choice of a file system, the implementation of websockets, efficient load balancing, and the fine-tuning of existing technologies like the RPC over SSH. We present in detail the improved server setup and report on the performance, the user acceptance and the realized applications of the system.