[kepler-dev] [kepler-users] question about kepler

[Paul Allen]

Dawid, Tristan, and kepler-dev people:

I'll try to give you a combined status of this effort. I hope to have a 
coherent version to release in a couple of months. This version would be 
similar in functionality to Hydrant. At this point, the implementation 
is Spring, Hibernate, MySQL, and WebSphere based. I know that WebSphere 
is of limited utility to others, but we typically don't take advantage 
of WebSphere-specific functionality, so it should run on any modern Java 
app server.

I wouldn't mind contributing this software to the kepler project (making 
it open source), but I not sure how that would be handled (a separate 
"product"?). It's also quite messy right now, and I'd want to make sure 
that it is cleaned up at least a little before exposing it.

- Paul

dejw wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> it will be open-source? can I download the current code (svn, cvs?) 
> install it and evaluate or something like this? when exectly do you 
> plan to finish it?
>
> Dawid
>
> Paul Allen wrote:
>> Yes, we are working on two things that might be of general interest 
>> to the Kepler community:
>>
>> 1) a web-based front-end to a myexperiment.org like into which you 
>> can upload and execute workflows
>> 2) a scalable back-end workflow execution framework to run workflows 
>> at the request of web site users
>>
>> We are half-way through a development cycle at the end of which I 
>> expect to have a stable demo site.
>>
>> -Paul
>>
>> Matthew Jones wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The actor repository allows you to upload an actor along with its 
>>> MoML document and documentation.  The actor is stored in a Metacat 
>>> server (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/metacat) and the 
>>> documentation is indexed to enable searching the repository through 
>>> a web-based interface.  The repository can also be searched from 
>>> within the Kepler application to locate remote actors of interest.  
>>> Metacat uses LDAP as its directory server to authenticate users.  
>>> Metacat supports fine grained, role-based access control of the 
>>> objects it stores, but we currently are only supporting 
>>> public/private access levels to simplify the process of uploading 
>>> actors.  This could be reconsidered if there is a use case for more 
>>> access levels.
>>>
>>> Kepler communicates with Metacat using the EarthGrid web services 
>>> interface. Any server that supports the appropriate web services 
>>> interface could technically be used as an actor repository within 
>>> Kepler. Metacat is one such server, and there may be others that 
>>> would be candidates.
>>>
>>> You can indeed deploy a version of metacat at your institution and 
>>> use it for your actor repository by configuring the Kepler client to 
>>> point at the new repository.
>>>
>>> Kepler automatically prompts a person to login when they attempt to 
>>> perform an operation requiring authentication, such as uploading an 
>>> actor to the repository.  There is also a Login menu that allows 
>>> someone to login at any time.
>>>
>>> In terms of web-based UIs, there are several efforts.  Hydrant is 
>>> indeed an excellent example, but others are also developing 
>>> systems.  The GEON project has  been running Kepler in the GEON 
>>> portal successfully for several years, and Paul Allen at the Cornell 
>>> Laboratory of Ornithology is developing an interface for 
>>> biodiversity research.  The interest in this topic is significant, 
>>> and so we will probably be forming a working group to improve 
>>> Kepler's ability to be run in a portal environment.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Matt
>>>
>>> P.S. Please do not cross-post to kepler-dev and kepler-users -- pick 
>>> the appropriate list for your question -- most developers are on 
>>> both lists.
>>>
>>> dejw wrote:
>>>> Hi Jianwu again,
>>>>
>>>> I want to ask more about this below:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 3. Actor repository - I understand that it is possible to have 
>>>>>> one common actor repository for some organization? Kepler uses 
>>>>>> LDAP for it? Are there some access rights for actors or something 
>>>>>> like this? Is it possible to grant some roles to users when LDAP 
>>>>>> authentication is used? Is it possible to require login while 
>>>>>> starting Kepler?
>>>>>      You can find the current actor repository at 
>>>>> http://library.kepler-project.org/kepler/. Yet it is not widely 
>>>>> used currently. We are trying implement more comprehensive actor 
>>>>> repository mechanism.
>>>>>>
>>>> 1. So you use LDAP server to store actors? or something else?
>>>>
>>>> 2. How about access rights and user roles as regard access to 
>>>> actors in such repository?
>>>>
>>>> 3. I understand I can deploy such repository inside some 
>>>> organization and configure kepler to use it?
>>>>
>>>> 4. Can I set kepler to require login before start editor? to 
>>>> recognize user somehow?
>>>>
>>>> Dawid
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>> Kepler-users at ecoinformatics.org
>>>> http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics/mailman/listinfo/kepler-users 
>>>>
>>>
>
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