g-Eclipse - Getting started

After you downloaded and started the g-Eclipse framework, you will see the common Eclipe welcome page. You can use documentation links there to get more information, or you just close the welcome menu by clicking on the tab.

You get clean workspace and the Eclipse workbench looks probably like the next picture - you got a perspective containing different views.

Create the first Grid project

In order to create a first Grid project, you select File > New > Project..." and get the New Projects Wizard. Select under the folder "g-Eclipse" the item "New Grid Project". Then click "Next" and you enter the name of your Grid Project and click on Next.

On the next page the wizard asks you to select the Virtual Organisation (VO) for your project. The Grid model of the g-Eclipse framework requires a Virtual Organisation for every Grid Project. You can not continue with a Grid project without the definition of a Virtual Organisation. Find more information about the idea and the management of VOs in the g-Eclipse framework at the concept section and in the help system under the topic Middlewares. As we start from a plain workspace there is no VO at the beginning so we define the VO first by selecting Edit VOs.... You will be directed to the VO preference page of the g-Eclipse framework where you then enter the parameters of your VO. Assuming that you define the VO for the infrastructure you want to use, the user come back with at least one VO. and the wizards shows at least one VO (i.e. the AmazonWebServices). Select the VO with the Checkbox and click Next

On the last page of the Wizard you can define the structure of your Grid project, but for the first start just click Finish.

Then the Grid project is created and the g-Eclipse frameworks changes to the Grid user perspective with the following dialog. Click Yes and the Grid user perspective will opened.

The Grid use perspective

The main view in the Grid user perspective is the Grid project View, which is shown on the left side of the next image. It provides the logical view to the virtualized infrastructure of any Grid project. It contains the standard folders defined above and the node representing the Virtual Organisation (in our example it is called AmazonWebServies).At startup, the central part of the workbench, the editor, is empty. But depending on the edit action you start, you will get the corresponding editor in the Editor area.

More details about Grid and Cloud projects can be found under in the concept section and under the middleware specific sections.

The Grid Project View

The center of each Grid project is the Grid projects is the Grid project view. The vitualized structure of the Project View contains local and remote resources. One of the tree items in the view is the Virtual Organisation of the project. Under that tree item the available Grid and Cloud resources are shown to the user. I.e. a Virtual Organisation for AWS services contains the children Computing, Services and Storage. These children are common for each VO independent of the middleware used. But the interactions might slightly differ.

Security on Grids and Clouds

Grid and Cloud infrastructures are remote resources on which a user must authenticate himself. Furthermore, an authorisation framework manages the access rights of the user. In order to interact with a remote service, the user must possess a valid authentication token. The g-Eclipse framework has a smart framework to manage these tokens. Whenever the user access a Grid/Cloud service, the framework checks if such a service exists. If not, then the input page for the according token pops up. I.e. if the user opens the Storage item the following input page pops-up. Enter the security information for the used middleware (i.e. enter the AWS access key).

More Information about the g-Eclipse Security and Authentication framework can be found in the concept section and in the middleware specific sections.

At startup, the central part of the workbench, the editor, is empty. Depending on the action you start, you will get the corresponding editor in the Editor area.

Before you can start interacting with the Grid, you need to set up your g-Eclipse environment. The following configuration is necessary: