Overview of K-Wf Grid System Installation

The K-Wf Grid system is a connection of several interoperating modules. Some of these modules may be operated separately, some are only supporting modules to others, and some need support of other modules to work correctly.

The Workfow Management Core

The K-Wf Grid has two main cores (although it does no require dual-core hardware to run). One of them is the workflow management subsystem. At the centre of this is Grid Workflow Execution Service (GWES). This manages the actual GworkflowDL-described workflows, and invokes the other components. These are the Workflow Composition Tool (WCT), Automated Application Builder (AAB), and the Scheduler.

The Knowledge Core

The other part of the system is centered around the Grid Organizational Memory (GOM). This component stores all of the various knowledge necessary for K-Wf Grid operation, and most of the rest of the system queries it in order to process workflows. This is also accessed by components from the workflow management core, for example by both the WCT and AAB, during abstract workflow refinement.

Overall System Installation

To begin, you need to download and install the GOM. This is the central knowledge store, which does not require any other K-Wf Grid module as a prerequisite, and which provides services to the rest of the system. After the GOM, you install WCT and AAB, and configure them (see their respective download pages at http://www.kwfgrid.eu) to use the previously installed GOM. Then you only need to install the Scheduler (which can work also without Knowledge Assimilation Agent support), and you can install the GWES. After you configure it to use the installed WCT, AAB, and Scheduler, you may start invoking, refining, and running GworkflowDL-based workflows.

To be able to really use the knowledge of K-Wf Grid, you would next install the GEMINI monitoring system. Once it is deployed, you reconfigure and reinstall GWES, so all monitoring events from it are routed to GEMINI. From there, they are sent to the Knowledge Assimilation Agent (KAA). You install it, and reconfigure the GEMINI to work with the installation. Then you reconfigure and restart the Scheduler, so it can invoke the KAA in order to obtain advice about service instance selection.

Now you may want to get some nice click-and-go capability. You install a GridSphere container (look at http://www.gridsphere.org/gridsphere/gridsphere for information about how to do it), and into the container install the various K-Wf Grid portlets, which were developed during the project. Some of the portlets need to be configured – for example the Workflow Status portlet displays the Scheduler interface, or the Grid Workflow User Interface – GWUI – (Control Panel) portlet can direct GWUI to connect to a GWES instance of your choice. Also, for the User Assistant panel to work, you need to download and install the User Assistant Agent. This component then stores very useful hints about workflows, their components, results, experiences of you and your colleagues.