Software architectures to integrate workflow engines in science gateways

Tristan Glatard, Marc Étienne Rousseau, Sorina Camarasu-Pop, Reza Adalat, Natacha Beck, Samir Das, Rafael Ferreira da Silva, Najmeh Khalili-Mahani, Vladimir Korkhov, Pierre Olivier Quirion, Pierre Rioux, Sílvia D. Olabarriaga, Pierre Bellec, Alan C. Evans

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Science gateways often rely on workflow engines to execute applications on distributed infrastructures. We investigate six software architectures commonly used to integrate workflow engines into science gateways. In tight integration, the workflow engine shares software components with the science gateway. In service invocation, the engine is isolated and invoked through a specific software interface. In task encapsulation, the engine is wrapped as a computing task executed on the infrastructure. In the pool model, the engine is bundled in an agent that connects to a central pool to fetch and execute workflows. In nested workflows, the engine is integrated as a child process of another engine. In workflow conversion, the engine is integrated through workflow language conversion. We describe and evaluate these architectures with metrics for assessment of integration complexity, robustness, extensibility, scalability and functionality. Tight integration and task encapsulation are the easiest to integrate and the most robust. Extensibility is equivalent in most architectures. The pool model is the most scalable one and meta-workflows are only available in nested workflows and workflow conversion. These results provide insights for science gateway architects and developers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)239-255
Number of pages17
JournalFuture Generation Computer Systems
Volume75
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2017

Funding

We thank the anonymous reviewers for the thorough reviews and useful comments that greatly contributed to improve the quality of this paper. This work has been made possible with the support of the Irving Ludmer Family Foundation and the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health. The integration between PSOM and CBRAIN was supported by a Brain Canada Platform Support Grant, as well as the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA), through a grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research and funding from several partners. This work is in the scope of the LABEX PRIMES (ANR-11- LABX-0063) of Universit\u00E9 de Lyon, within the program \u201CInvestissements d'Avenir\u201D (ANR-11-IDEX-0007) operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR). This work also falls into the scope of the scientific topics of the French National Grid Institute (IdG). The VIP team thanks the site administrators of the European Grid Initiative and the GGUS support for their help related to the VIP platform. The CBRAIN team is grateful for the computing cycles, storage, and support obtained from Compute Canada (https://computecanada.ca) and platform development program from CANARIE (http://www.canarie.ca/). We also acknowledge the Dutch national e-Infrastructure with the support of SURF Cooperative, the Dutch national program COMMIT/ and the High Performance Computing and Networking (HPCN) Fund of the University of Amsterdam for their support to the science gateway activities at the AMC. We are also grateful to the financial support provided by FP7 E-INFRASTRUCTURE program for financial support to SCI-BUS, SHIWA and ER-flow projects.

Keywords

  • Science gateways
  • Software architectures
  • Workflow engines

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