XBaya
From Ogce
Contents |
Introduction
XBaya is an Java webstart application that can be used for composition, running and monitoring of workflows. It enables the users to run pre-composed workflows or the user can compose and run workflows on the fly.
To launch a hosted binary version of XBaya -http://ogceportal.iu.teragrid.org/xbaya/xbaya-dev.jnlp
Lanching XBaya
XBaya requires running Java code in the users machine, Java requires the user to verify whether the user trusts the application. When the user launches the XBaya user would be prompt with the following message, which would ask the user whether he wants to trust an application signed by Extreme! Computing Laboratory. User need to click on "Run" for the application to continue.
Once the user authorize the application, XBaya would be launched as a separate java application. Following is a screen shot of how it would look in the beginning.
Running workflows
XBaya allows workflows to be composed and saved into a file. Following are two such workflows composed and saved into files.
Each of the files contain enough information required to run the workflows like the service locations and execution sequence. Easiast way to run a workflow is to use an already existing one. First step is to download and save one or both of the above workflow files into the local file system. Then this workflow file should be opened using the XBaya workflow composer. XBaya would load the workflow and it will be ready to be invoked. THis workflow would contact a service and add two numbers.
This loaded workflow is ready to run after minor configurations. Start running the workflow from Workflow->Run(Jython)Workflow. XBaya would prompt the following dialog in which the user need to fill in the input values to the workflow(i.e. the numbers to be added in this case) and a topic value for tracing purposes. Rest of the fields can be ignored.
Now XBaya will start executing the workflow and as the workflow progresses there will be color changes and the monitoring panel will display the progress of the workflow.
Accessing secure services
Accessing secure services and secure registries require getting an proxy certificate for mutual authentication. The security mechanism that XBaya adopt is inline with the grid security mechanism and the user need to have his/her proxy certificate stored in some "My Proxy" server. This can be done by My Proxy ->Load Proxy. This would prompt a dialog that would ask for my proxy server location and username and password to access the proxy certificate. Once successfully authenticated XBaya would fetch the proxy certificate and would present to any service that require authentication. Authentication to the service will be successful if and only if users certificate is signed by a Certificate Authority that the services would trust.
Adding services from X-Registry
If the user is trying to compose new workflows it is necessary to find services that are composable. One way to do this is to use a registry. Extreme lab maintains a registry that has services published there. A X-Registry location can be added by Components->Add X-Registry. It would prompt the following dialog.
Once the registry is contacted XBaya would populate the new services in the services panel so that they can be used for workflow composition.
