EAGER: Designing the OSN Software Platform

EAGER奖将探索为全新类型的基础设施提供动力所需的软件平台，即，一个全国性的开放式存储网络该项目团队将与位于约翰霍普金斯大学的开放存储网络（OSN）项目团队和四个NSF大数据区域创新中心密切合作，后者将收购和运营OSN的硬件组件。该项目将在计算机科学家、软件和网络工程师以及应用科学家之间进行多学科合作，以开发和制作软件原型。目标是快速了解软件平台上的关键需求，为OSN的下一阶段做准备，这将涉及部署一个全国性的生产质量存储网络，其中包含数百PB的容错分布式存储，通过高速网络互连。本项目的重点是设计和开发OSN软件平台和相应的编程接口，以确保三类用户能够有效和方便地使用这些平台和接口：OSN系统管理员，他们需要监测和管理OSN的运作;应用程序开发员，他们开发基于OSN能力的创新应用程序;以及直接或通过此类应用程序使用OSN的研究人员、教育工作者、学生和其他人。该基金将探索和开发开放存储网络（OSN）节点的软件堆栈的快速原型，以回答对国家级实施的最终成功至关重要的探索性问题，例如：-应该告知OSN这样的系统设计的用例是什么？-需要什么机制来管理和管理像OSN这样的系统？在核心OSN结构之上应该提供哪些增值服务来支持应用程序用例？什么样的可持续发展模式可以用来扩大和维持OSN？OSN使用情形和工作流对存储系统级别的OSN基础架构有何影响？为了为这种探索性的快速原型设计工作奠定基础，EAGER团队将与OSN团队合作，建立一个功能性存储测试平台，该平台使用的软件足够强大，可以让用户放心，并能够在真实的科学应用中使用，这将是该测试平台的测试用例。这项工作将涉及部署现有的软件，如Ceph和Globus。然而，这项工作只是为解决上述探索性问题做准备，这些问题是拟议项目的重点。本文提出的工作将原型化OSN软件平台的初始版本，该平台提供了一组初始的身份验证、授权、数据移动和数据共享功能，以支持OSN实验和验证。该项目还将致力于设计和开发一个功能更全的OSN软件平台，为下一个版本，基于社区的投入，并通过早期的实验研究的支持。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得的支持，通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This EAGER award will explore the software platform needed to power a radically new type of infrastructure, viz., a national-scale open storage network. The project team will work closely with the Open Storage Network (OSN) project team, located at Johns Hopkins University and the four NSF Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs, who will acquire and operate the hardware component of the OSN. The project will engage in multidisciplinary collaboration among computer scientists, software and network engineers, and application scientists, to develop and prototype the software. The goal is to learn rapidly about the key requirements placed on the software platform in preparation for the next phase of OSN, which would involve the deployment of a nationwide, production-quality storage network with hundreds of petabytes of fault tolerant, distributed storage, interconnected via high-speed networks. The focus of this project is on the design and development of the OSN software platform and corresponding programming interfaces, to ensure that they can be accessed effectively and easily by three groups of users: OSN system administrators, who are required to monitor and manage OSN operations; application developers, who develop innovative applications that build upon OSN capabilities; and researchers, educators, students, and others, who use the OSN either directly or through such applications. This grant explores and develops rapid prototypes of the software stack for nodes of the Open Storage Network (OSN), with a view to answering exploratory questions vital to the eventual success of a national-scale implementation, such as:-What are the use cases that should inform the design of a system like OSN?-What are the mechanisms that will be required to administer and manage a system like OSN?-What value-added services should be provided on top of a core OSN fabric to support application use cases?-What sustainability models can be used to expand and sustain OSN?-What are the implications of OSN use cases and workflows for OSN infrastructure at the storage system level?To provide a foundation for this exploratory, rapid prototyping effort the EAGER team will work with the OSN team to establish a functional storage testbed with software that is sufficiently robust to give users confidence and enable use in real scientific applications, which will be the test cases for this testbed. That work will involve deployment of existing software such as Ceph and Globus. However, that work is just preparatory to addressing the exploratory questions listed above, which are the focus of the proposed project. The work proposed here will prototype an initial version of the OSN Software Platform that provides an initial set of authentication, authorization, data movement, and data sharing capabilities to support OSN experimentation and validation. The project will also work towards the design and development of a more full-featured OSN Software Platform for its next version, based upon community input, and backed up by early experimental studies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.