A Java-based Science Portal for Neutron Scattering Experiments

Authors: Sudharshan S. Vazhkudai, James A. Kohl, Jens Schwidder - Oak Ridge

Complete Citation

• Sudharshan S. Vazhkudai, James A. Kohl, Jens Schwidder. A Java-based Science Portal for Neutron Scattering Experiments. In Proc. Principles and Practice of Programming in Java, 2007.

Abstract

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is a state-of-the-art neutron scattering facility recently commissioned by the US Department of Energy (DOE). The neutron beam produced at SNS will have an intensity that is an order of magnitude higher than existing facilities worldwide, enabling a signicantly better understanding of and exploration into the structure of matter. The SNS is a billion-and-a-half dollar investment supporting research that impacts diverse science domains such as materials, chemistry, engineering, polymers, structural biology, and superconductivity. Thousands of scientists from around the world will annually perform experiments at SNS, ultimately producing petabytes of raw data that must be reduced, curated, analyzed and visualized. The SNS facility is developing a Java-based one-stop shopping web portal with access to the broad spectrum of data and computing services that will facilitate scientic discovery by enabling geographically dispersed users to seamlessly access and utilize the SNS facility resources. In this article, we describe the design and implementation of the SNS portal, focusing on several key architectural components, highlighting the diverse usage of Java in a production environment, ranging from enterprise level software composition to remote interactive visualization and integration with high performance distributed computing.

Annotations

• In the old days, researchers travelled to the lab, obtained their data, and went home for postprocessing.
• Data sizes and computational requirements have increased.
• Now, all computation must be centralized.

Benefits of a unified computing system:

• Access to the breadth and diversity of applications;
• Eliminates site-to-site collaborative data transfers;
• Access to high performance computers.

Goals:

• GB to TB must be archived for the long term;
• Visualization in 3D;
• Seamless access to HPC;
• Remote execution of applications through their portals;
• Security.

-- JustinWozniak - 17 Oct 2007