2.1. Project and Account Management¶

2.1.1. Terminology¶

Portal Account:

A portal account is necessary to communicate information about yourself to the FutureGrid team so that they can verify your identity and that you are a community member who has a need to use FutureGrid. Once you have a portal account approved you can apply for a project.

Resource Account:

A portal account will not give you access to the FutureGrid resources. You will have to go to the portal and join a project, or create a new one.

Valid Project:

At least one project you belong to must be valid. A valid project is one that is approved by a committee. If you are not in a valid, active project your access to FutureGrid will be blocked. Projects that do not report any progress will be blocked after a while. Note that you agree to update regular results via the portal as part of your agreement to use FutureGrid.

Project Lead:

The Project Lead submits a project and is responsible for updating the project page and project members. There is exactly one Project Lead.

Project Manager:

The Project Lead can assign editing and management roles to a Project Manager. He will have the same rights in regards to updating page content and members as the Project Lead.

Project Member:

The Project Lead or Manager can add additional members to the project. A member must have a portal account.

Project Alumni:

Sometimes project members leave a project before it is completed. Such members are no longer part of the project and should not have access to the project. However they can still be acknowledged to have played a role as part of the project by being placed as a member of the alumni role.

Uploaded SSH Key:

As you are using remote compute resources, we will require that you are very familiar with ssh key management. You will need to upload a public ssh key to the portal so that we can create an account for you and use that public ssh key to allow you to log in to use the resources.

2.1.2. Quickstart¶

If you have never created a project on FutureGrid, we recommend that you do not use the quickstart guide and instead read the full documentation. To remind you what you have to do here are a couple steps that you need to do:

For non XSEDE users:

1. Create a Portal account and wait for confirmation via e-mail
2. Join a project or create a new project and wait for confirmation. Note that you must communicate with the project lead first before you can join a project.

For XSEDE users:

1. Please go to the XSEDE portal and apply for an XSEDE portal account.
2. Create a new project as documented in the XSEDE portal allocations page or ask your XSEDE project lead to add you to the project.
3. It will take some time to get your account activated

2.1.3. Projects and Accounts for XSEDE users¶

2.1.4. Project Management¶

Title: Course: Example Course On Advanced Cloud Computing

Project Keywords:
   Course, Cloud, OpenStack, Eucalyptus

Project Lead:
   Gregor von Laszewski (portalname)

Project Manager:
   Gregor von Laszewski (portalname)

Project Members:
  Fugang Wang (use portalname)
  Albert Elfstein (use portalname)

Project Alumni:

Project Orientation: *
- [ ] Research
- [x] Education
- [ ] Industry
- [ ] Government

Primary Discipline: *
  Computer Science

Abstract: *
=========

Note: this is an example project and is not a real project,
although the contents presented in this material is available.

This course will introduce the students at Indiana University as
part of the Summer Semester 2012 into the essentials of Cloud
Computing and HPC. We will start the course by teaching the
students python within one week. As cloud computing framework we
have chosen OpenStack, as it has become one of the ubiquitous IaaS
frameworks and is available on FutureGrid (Sierra). Additionally,
we will teach the students how to program a simple MPI application
so that they can further develop the virtual cluster code available
from github (https://github.com/futuregrid/virtual-cluster).
We will compare the performance between the virtualized and non
virtualized environment as develop with the help of our cloud
metrics system a scheduler that enables us to use bare metal
provisioned clusters and virtualized clusters on-demand based on
resource requirements and specifications. We are aware that the
FutureGrid team is developing such an environment, and would like to join
the efforts throughout our course with the contributions conducted
by the students.

Course Dates:

This class will be taught in 10 weeks as part of the Indiana
University CS curriculum. The following dates are important

      Start: July 13, 2013
      End:   Sept 23, 2013
      Extension: 1 month for students with programming in-completes.

Course Outline (tentative):

   1. Introduction and Overview
   2. Essential Python for the Cloud
   3. Introduction to OpenStack
   4. Programming OpenStack
   5. Programming a HPC Cluster
   6. Creating a Virtual Cluster
   7. Performance Comparison
   8. Cloud Metrics
   9. Cloudmesh
   10. Joining FutureGrid Software Developments

Grading Policies:
   Class participation and contribution: 5%
   Homework assignments, reading summary, and paper presentation: 50%
      Programming assignments: (30%)
      Reading Summaries: (10%)
      Paper Presentation: (10%)
   Course Project: 50%
      Proposal: (10%)
      Midterm Presentation: (10%)
      Final Presentation and Demo: (15%)
      Final Report: (15%)

   Note:
     Homework and programming assignments are due by 11:59pm
     Thursdays (unless announced in class otherwise). Late homework
     (non-programming) will NOT be accepted. Late program penalty
     is 10% per day, according to the timestamp of your online
     submission. Only when verifiable extenuating circumstances can
     be demonstrated will extended assignment due dates be
     considered. Verifiable extenuating circumstances must be
     reasons beyond control of the students, such as illness or
     accidental injury. Poor performance in class is not an
     extenuating circumstance. Inform your instructor of the
     verifiable extenuating circumstances in advance or as soon as
     possible. In such situations, the date and nature of the
     extended due dates for the assignments will be decided by the
     instructor.

 Please note that FutureGrid does not approve accounts on the
 weekends. Regular support hours are Mo-Fri 9am - 5pm. Please
 note that answering support questions does take time. Do not
 start the night before the homework is due. Plan your
 programming assignments to be done early.

Intellectual Merit: *
===================

The course will be introducing the students to cloud computing and
will also be used to derive new class materiel that we will be
using in subsequent lessons.

Broader Impact: *
===============

This class will be educating a number of students in cloud
computing programming. Cloud computing is an important factor in
job availability after graduation of students, thus this course
will be useful to increase marketability of the students. In
addition we have in the past also been able to increase
participation of minority students. In the past we had 10 minority
students and 9 female students taking this class. We intend to work
together with Gregor von Laszewski and improve the FutureGrid
manual and to make our course material available via FutureGrid
through its github and community portal pages.

Scale of use: *
=============

We anticipate the course will have 30-35 students. The course
will be using OpenStack and HPC compute resources and requires for
selected students access to bare metal provisioning.  The course
will not require to run computationally intense
applications. However, we require that students be able to run up
to 30 VMs at a time. We know that this may in peak hours be beyond
the capabilities of FutureGrid and are advising our students to
kill machines if they are not used. The maximum duration of a
single VM will typically be less than 5 minutes.

Results:
========

2.1.5. Upload a SSH Public Key¶

In order to be able to log into the started VMs, among other purposes, you need to provide FG with a secure-shell (ssh) public key. If you are already a frequent user of ssh, and have a private and public key pair, it is perfectly reasonable to provide your public key. It’s public, after all.

To upload the chosen public key:

1. Copy your public identity into your system clipboard.
2. Visit the ssh-key panel of your account.
3. Click the link that says Add a public key.

If you are not familiar with ssh keys we have provided a more elaborate section about Using SSH Keys

Changes to keys will take up to 1 hour to propagate through the system services. You are not allowed to use password less keys. Your account may be deactivated if you violate this policy.

2.1.6. Upload an OpenId¶

Often users may not remember the password or username of the FG portal. However, they may have an easier time to remember their openid from for example google. It is possible to use your openid account and register it once you gain access to the portal. Please visit your

• OpenID Page

to add your favorite OpenID. For example, to add your Google OpenId you simply click on the Google icon.

2.1.7. Accessing FutureGrid Resources¶

To access and use resources, you must

• have a portal account
• be part of a valid project
• have uploaded a public key to the portal that you will use to log into some of its resources.

Once these conditions are met, you will be able to access the resources and services that your project has requested and been authorized to use. See the section Services for a list of FutureGrid resources and services. This includes cloud and HPC resources. Accounts to these resources will be automatically generated once you have conducted the above steps. The turnaround time for you getting access to the system is typically between 30 minutes and one day.

2.1.8. Manage a Class on FutureGrid¶

If you teach a class using FutureGrid resources we recommend you do the following:

1. Create a portal account if you do not have one.

2. Apply for an educational project, carefully filling out the form including how many students, broader impact, such as support of minorities, what will be learned, the course syllabus if available, a link to the course web page if available, the duration of the course including a time when the course is completed. We typically add a month so that incomplete projects can be completed easily.

3. Make sure you enable the join button of the project, this will allow your students to join via a button click and you can easily approve or reject join requests. Come up with a “signup code” to be shared with the students.

4. Give your students the signup code that you have chosen in the previous step. Communicate the signup code to the FutureGrid support team via a ticket submitted through https://portal.futuregrid.org/help. Make sure you specify your project number. Often it is also helpful to send a list of students to us so that, it is easier for us to assist them during the application process.

5. Make sure your students sign up for a FutureGrid portal account and that they specify their profile information precisely. This information is used later on to grant students accounts on FutureGrid. Accounts will not automatically be created just because a user has a portal account. Have the students add you as their advisor in the advisor textarea.

6. Remind the students to add their public ssh-keys to the portal. Some students may not have the knowledge what this means or what this is good for. We recommend that you in the first class teach the why they need to do this and how the can do this. In the portal users can add ssh keys when they go to the my portal section.

7. It will take some time for the accounts to be created after an ssh key is uploaded, and the student is added to your approved projects. Communicate to the students to wait. We only approve accounts during business hours and it can take up to 24 business hours. Business hours are Mo-Fri 9am - 5pm EST. We will not answer any questions on the weekends.

8. Once a student has an account on the portal, please make sure you add the student to your project. This is important as only people that are assigned to a valid FutureGrid project can have accounts on FutureGrid resources. Your project will by default have a project join request, which makes it easier for students to join your project. Provide the link to the students so that they can join. A convenient management button is provided where you can verify that the student is indeed a person that is to be part of your project. The join button can be disabled by you and you could instead add your students while entering their portal names.

   Hence, you will be able to manage the joining of students yourself. Be careful that you only join those students that are in your class. Please remember that a signup code is not really secret and that students may exchange the code with others. Thus it is a good idea to still verify if the user with the signup code is a member of your class. Also be reminded that some students forget to specify the signup code at time of their account creation. You have to deal with such forgetful students as a signup code cannot be added.

9. If the student roster is changing, just edit the project details and add/remove them or move them to the alumni status.

10. If student projects are due on Mondays remind them not to start their project on Sunday night incase they find out they do not have an account. Generally we recommend to make due dates of projects to be Thursdays till 5pm or Friday mornings. Be reminded that on the first Tuesday of each month all machines will be shut down and all unsaved running VMs or ongoing work may be lost. Please plan around this.

11. We have created some forums for the three services that you can find at https://portal.futuregrid.org/forum. These forums are read by the experts and the staff. We can create a forum for your class if you like directly on the FutureGrid portal.

12. In case you need more direct support, do not hesitate to ask for help https://portal.futuregrid.org/help

13. Make sure you write a results section after your class is over.

2.1.9. Mini FAQ¶

• Which Projects Do I Participate In?
• How can I Join a Project?
• How can I add people to a project?
  • Go to your project, select the add member link and add the user portal names. Alternative have your users use the join button and you use the manage button.
• Why Do I See in the Project Table “Please Sign Up”?
  • If you are the owner of a project and see this information under project lead or manager, you may not yet have signed up for a portal account. Please sign up for one, and we will change it in the project view for you.
• Why do I need to provide the email address from my university?
  • It may take longer to approve your account. See Create a Portal account
• How long will it take for my portal account to be approved?
  • If you did everything and we can verify you exist two business days.
• How Do I Get an Account for Eucalyptus, Nimbus, or OpenStack? see Accessing FutureGrid Resources
• How can I Delete or Deactivate a user from a Project
• How do I Upload a SSH Public Key
• How do I get a user account on FutureGrid resources? see Quickstart