TAMU-HPRC-OnDemand-Portal.pdf

Open OnDemand is an open source web platform developed at the Ohio Supercomputing Center (OSC). Texas A&M University High Performance Research Computing (TAMU HPRC) has collaborated with OSC to port Open OnDemand to the Ada cluster at TAMU. The TAMU HPRC OnDemand portal provides an intuitive and simple-to-use web interface that allows HPRC users to access the HPRC clusters anywhere with all major browsers.The Portal features three core applications: file management, job management, and cluster shell access. The three core applications currently facilitate user access to the 17,000+ core Ada cluster, especially for those users who have worked with Windows. Windows users have appreciated the Portal greatly since they don’t have to deal with Linux and batch schedulers using the command line to access the cluster. The Portal also offers interactive access to graphical applications running on the cluster. These “click-to-run” applications have been well received by HPRC users for their simple access and high performance.Response by our user community has been strong and favorable, with total users doubled since announcing the Portal to HPRC users in March 2018. Outreach events about the Portal have helped to attract new users, as we have observed. Open OnDemand has proven to be a useful and powerful platform for providing services to HPRC users of all abilities. Our future work on the Portal will focus on providing a common access point to all of the HPRC’s clusters, adding more applications, and organizing more outreach events to broaden the user community.