TeraGrid Logo
Learn About the TeraGridTeraGrid NewsEducation & TrainingScience GatewaysUser Support & Documentation

Section site map: News

News

News

TeraGrid User Portal Goes Live

May 19, 2006

This week the TeraGrid initiative launched the TeraGrid User Portal, a sophisticated resource for users across the country to get information about TeraGrid resources and to simplify account management. Current TeraGrid users will receive their portal logins in a phased rollout over a three month period that started on May 15.

Our Science Gateways initiative aims to deliver the power and variety of TeraGrid resources through discipline-specific web portals and desktop applications, said TeraGrid Director Charlie Catlett from the University of Chicago. The user portal is essentially a general purpose science gateway for the entire user community. It will incorporate tools from the science community and provide examples of what can be built into any TeraGrid science gateway.

The purpose of the TeraGrid User Portal is to serve as a launch pad for new users and a control panel for current users by integrating all TeraGrid resources, services and information into a single web interface serving a national community of computational researchers, according to Eric Roberts, lead developer for the User Portal and software developer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

More specifically, the User Portal is a tool for users to manage TeraGrid accounts and to obtain information on allocation procedures, job accounting, site security, user consulting, and documentation of site-specific resources. The portal also provides comprehensive monitoring of resources using the Grid Portal Information Repository (GPIR) software. Future features include the ability to submit jobs to resources, manage files and data, create and manage workflows, portal customization, integrated data collections, and integrated science gateways.

By providing all of these services through a single web interface, the TeraGrid User Portal will help decrease administrative overhead for our users by providing an easy-to-use interface that allows users to concentrate on their research rather than on how to manage their account, Roberts continued.

Key Features

The key features of the initial version of the TeraGrid User Portal include Account and Allocation Monitoring, Resource Monitoring Services, and Documentation Services:

Account and Allocation Monitoring

Enables a user to monitor overall project usage as well as their individual usage, provides a simple reference of all usernames on all TeraGrid compute, visualization and storage resources, and allows a user to view the distinguished names (DN) that are currently registered for their TeraGrid account. All of this information gives users a simple, easy to read "dashboard" of information about their TeraGrid account.

Resource Monitoring Services

Include a comprehensive list of TeraGrid resources, job queues, load, status, and static resource attributes that describe all aspects of a resource from its peak performance to available memory to the type of graphics cards available if it is a visualization resource. Both dynamic and static information is pulled together into a single interface to provide users with a convenient tool used to monitor job status and even to decide where and when to run the next job.

Documentation Services

Include consulting information regarding where and how to submit help tickets to the TeraGrid help desk, documentation about how to user TeraGrid resources, information about how and where to request allocations, and helpful documentation embedded in the portal interface for easy access.

Additional features currently under development for the user portal are expected to be introduced during late 2006. For more information about the TeraGrid User Portal, please visit: http://www.teragrid.org/userinfo/portal.php.


About TeraGrid

The TeraGrid, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a partnership of people and resources that provides a comprehensive cyberinfrastructure to enable discovery in U.S. science and engineering research. Through high-performance network connections, the TeraGrid integrates a distributed set of very-high capability computational, data management and visualization resources to make U.S. research more productive. With Science Gateway collaborations and education and mentoring programs, the TeraGrid also connects and broadens scientific communities. The TeraGrid initiative is under the purview of the NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure that coordinates and supports the acquisition, development and provision of state-of-the-art cyberinfrastructure resources, tools and services essential to the conduct of 21st century science and engineering research and education.

Media Contacts

Scott Lathrop
TeraGrid Director, External Relations/Education, Outreach and Training
Argonne National Laboratory
630.252.6257

Faith Singer-Villalobos
Public Affairs Coordinator
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
512.232.5771

More News Releases

TeraGrid logo
NSF logo

The TeraGrid project is funded by the National Science Foundation and includes 11 partners:
Indiana, LONI, NCAR, NCSA, NICS, ORNL, PSC, Purdue, SDSC, TACC and UC/ANL.

Please email help@teragrid.org with questions or comments or fill out the online feedback form.