GSEngine

Welcome. GSEngine is an integral part of the ViroLab Virtual Laboratory and this is the main development website of this tool. Here you will be able to read about the newest releases of this component, consult the installation and use manuals and find out about the plans for future milestones.

Short description

The GSEngine combines two important parts, in order to be able to run ViroLab experiments. First is an interpreter of the JRuby language in which experiments are written. The second part is the runtime library that provides all the specific functionalities of the virtual laboratory which fall beyond the capabilities of the interpreter's standard library.

In short, the runtime library provides a defined set of routines that allow the developer to perform the following actions:

  • instantiate Grid Objects (in general, or ViroLab Gems in the case of tools of ViroLab origin) on a suitable computing element in the ViroLab infrastructure
  • destroy previously created Grid Object instances
  • execute remote operations on those instances with required input parameters and receiving specified output results
  • store any important data outside the experiment execution machine in a safe Laboratory Data Store (not yet supported)
  • access remote data sources in a unified way, especially the ViroLab Data Access system that integrates crucial ViroLab databases
  • interact with experiement executor asking him to provide some input
  • freely use any kind of functionality that the JRuby standard library provides

The library is loaded into the interpreter every time execution of a ViroLab experiment plan is commended. Furthermore, the Runtime is responsible for holding and managing the entire experiment execution context. This may involve taking care of unique execution identification, passing authorization tokens on the user's behalf and maintaining information regarding the state of the experiment run.

Furthermore, the GSEngine interpreter with its runtime library may be referred from within any arbitrary Java application via its API. The API provided is intended to be complied by several implementations. One can perform script interpretation within the JVM of calling application, while the other is allowed to call dedicated remotely staged service, namely GSEngineServer.

Name change note

We have decided recently (04.07.2007) that we change the name of the main runtime component of the Virtual Laboratory from VLRuntime into GSEngine (short for GridSpace Engine). There are two main reasons for that decision:

  • conceptually, ViroLab runtime should be associated with something larger than just VLRuntime bundle (also DAS,Collab,VO etc.)
  • we try to make the runtime generic enough to be usable in other environments beside ViroLab (there are simply other sources of funding of that development) as well and therefore we need to separate its name from direct ViroLab reference

All in all, new GSEngine bundle will contain all the features of old VLRuntime package plus many more (new executable, dedicated standalone server and more).

Download

You can download GSEngine release bundles from GSEngine download page along with its sources that are placed in a separate bundles. We always strongly advise to get the latest release. Some sample experiments for ViroLab to test with GSEngine are also available at this location for each GSEngine release version.

Latest GSEngine stable release:

Less recent GSEngine releases:

Last VLRuntime release:

Manuals

Current:

Archived:

Under preparation:

Feedback and cooperation possibilities

You may (and, in fact, are kindly asked to) actively take part in making both the software and this webpage better.

Ticket system. First of all, the software. If you find a bug or you've thought of a useful feature/enhancement - please issue a ticket (see New Ticket tab). Tickets are small reports that you can use in order to describe the bug or you enhancement idea - you may check View Tickets to get the idea. What is important, each ticket has a discussion appended to it so you may further argument your point of view there. Tickets that are accepted for realization are assigned to specific milestones and the milestones, together with their deadline dates, form the Roadmap.

On the other hand, if you have any other comment, remark or a question/favor to ask, please use the contact information below to get in touch with us directly.

Development team contact

Direct developers contact:

  • Eryk Ciepiela, e.ciepiela (AT) cyfronet (DOT) pl

Direct webpage maintainer contact:

  • Daniel Harężlak, d.harezlak (AT) cyfronet (DOT) pl

Developers of GSEngine:

Tomasz Bartyński Eryk Ciepela Marek Kasztelnik
Joanna Kocot Maciej Malawski Piotr Nowakowski
Michał Pelczar Iwona Ryszka Bartłomiej Łabno

Acknowledgments

The design and development of these tools is being carried out at the Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET AGH.

A large part of the software being described on those pages is developed as part of (or is strongly based on) the GridSpace platform.

Project acknowledgments:

This work has been made possible through the support of the European Commission Virolab Project Grant 027446