With funding from a $1.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation, CGL leads Open Grid Computing Environments for Science Gateways (OGCE), a consortium of experts in the field of web-based access to scientific databases and computing resources. OGCE promotes and supports the use of science gateways, web-based tools that allow users without a computing background to easily access and use complex high performance computing resources in their research. OGCE researchers develop open source software that powers science gateways in use throughout the world. Science Gateways are bringing the power of modern supercomputers to a much broader audience, increasing the possibility for important breakthroughs in science, medical, and commercial research.

“Scientists studying climate change or searching for new drugs to treat illness benefit greatly from grid computing resources such as the TeraGrid, a national network of supercomputers and data storage facilities, but they are not usually experts in the complex software that powers these resources and binds them together. They need tools that will make this technology easy to use, so they can remain focused on their science," said Marlon Pierce, project principal investigator and assistant director of Community Grids Lab.

During 2008 the OGCE project team released several new services:

•    The OGCE Portal, version 2.4.  This is the flagship OGCE software release; the major addition to the current release is a file-browser applet that allows users to interact with NSF TeraGrid and other Grid file systems, simplifying the process of transferring files between the user’s desktop and the TeraGrid. 

•    OGCE Services, Development Release.  This is a packaging solution for the numerous services developed by the project.  OGCE services are packaged and downloaded as a single release and can be deployed in a one-step installation.  Services include the Resource Discovery and Resource Prediction services.  Several additional services will be added in the next six months.

•    GTLAB Tag Libraries, Development Release. GTLAB provides building blocks that allow developers of portlets and gadgets to rapidly build new applications.  We significantly revised the core of GTLAB and repackaged it into a one-click installation (following the same conventions used in other OGCE projects) during the current reporting period.

•    OGCE Gadget Container, Development Preview.  The CGL research team is making the transition from the portlet standard to Google-style gadgets.  The gadget container is a replacement for portlet containers used in the OGCE portal’s 2.x releases. 

For more information on OGCE see http://www.collab-ogce.org.