Transcript Turner - MMSN -- Molecular + Materials Structure Network

Crystal-25 April 10-13 2007
The Rising Power of the Web Browser:
Web Services Based Collaborative Remote
Instrument Control and Monitoring
Douglas du Boulay, Clinton Chee, Romain Quilici, Peter Turner,
Mathew Wyatt.
Part of a collaboration between Adelaide University, Indiana
University, James Cook University, State University of New York
(SUNY) at Binghamton, and the University of Sydney.
Crystal-25 April 10-13 2007
• Web services (WS) provide a platform and location independent means of
exchanging information between distributed resources.
• The specification of a Web service includes the nature of the application
interface and the nature of message passed between the applications and
resources.
• WS typically exchange information or messages with Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP). A SOAP message is an XML eXtensible Markup Language)
parcel that typically runs over HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol).
• The nature of the Web service (resource or application) and its interface is
identified in an associated XML based Web Services Definition Language
(WSDL: www.w3.org/TR/wsdl) message.
Applications (legacy or otherwise) written in differing programming languages
and running across heterogeneous platforms can use Web services to exchange
data over the internet
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Advantages of Web services:
• Location, computer platform and computer language independent.
Facilitates legacy code re-use.
• Integration of the instrument into the Web (and Grid)
• Grid friendly (can build a Grid using Web services)
• Robust security model (WS-Security supports security tokens and
certificates)
• Use of HTTP as the underlying Web transport protocol facilitates firewall
passage (through port 80)
• Supports Service Orientated Architectures (SOAs). Can integrate remote
services (standalone client applications, Web applications, command line
tools, portal servcies, Grid resources and services) into project/user
specific interfaces.
• Facilitates the linkage of multiple users and resources for collaborative
interactions across the Web.
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• Web services can be used by stand-alone applications and
interfaces – e.g. ANSTO’s GUMTree user interface could drive
applications using Web services.
• Web services are well suited to supporting and enabling Web
portal based services, with the user interface then being
provided by portlets embedded in a Web browser.
• So called Web 2.0 technology is enabling the Web as an
applications platform, and is changing the original role of the Web
browser. For instance;
- AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) introduces a
capability for a browser to function in a similar manner to a
stand-alone GUI. In particular portlet specific dynamic
‘refresh’ of browser content,
-
Pushlets allow information/data to be continuously pushed
to a browser – in effect over-turning the original browser
get ‘paradigm’.
Crystal-25 April 10-13
Together with the use of AJAX, Pushlets and GridSphere portal/portlet software,
we’ve been implementing and extending CIMA (Common Instrument Middleware
Architecture) as a basis for building Web services driven portal services for
remote access. is used to provide the portal-portlets infrastructure.
CIMA offers:
A general and re-usable Web services framework for instrument access
and management.
Flexible and extensible with modular use of plug-ins. Abstraction of
instrument function. Adaptable to different instrument settings. Standard
programmable interface.
Publish-subscribe or registration model.
Basis for a standardised implementation/deployment system.
Grid enablement of instruments made accessible with Web service
protocols.
Dynamic Content
Pushed:
Pushlets & AJAX
Container A
Collaborator
Portlets
Container
Data
cache
Web Services
Container
Several
simultaneous
users.
Collaborator
Only one
administrator.
CIMA
Component
Operator
SOAP
SOAP
Pushed Data:
XML Parcels
1) Requests:
XML Parcels
2) Responses:
XML Parcels
Web Services
Container
CIMA
Component
SOAP
Pushed Data:
XML Parcels
Container B
Instruments
SRB
Data
Manager
Dynamic Content
Pushed:
Pushlets & AJAX
Collaborator
Container A
Portlets
Container
Data
cache
Collaborator
Only one
Administrator
Web Services
Container
CIMA
Component
Operator
1) Requests:
XML Parcels
SOAP
SOAP
Pushed Data:
XML Parcels
2) Responses:
XML Parcels
Web Services
Container
CIMA
Component
Container B
Instruments
Several
simultaneous
users.
SRB
SOAP
Pushed Data:
XML Parcels
Data
Manager
Browser Driven Instrument Control
Browser Driven Instrument Simulator
Instrument Monitor
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Acknowledgements:
Sydney Uni
Douglas du Boulay
Clinton Chee
Richard Leow
Romain Quilici
JCU
Ian M. Atkinson
Tristan King
Nigel G.D. Sim
Mathew Wyatt
Indiana and SUNY
Rick McMullen
Ken Chiu
Australian Research Council: e-Research Seed Funding Programme and the
Research Networks Programme (MMSN: Molecular and Materials
Structure Network).
Department of Education Science and Training: Dataset Acquisition,
Accessibility, and Annotation e-Research Technologies (DART) project
GrangeNet: The Integration of Scientific Instruments into the Grid