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What is Webolab software?
Webolab is a server based software package used as a web interface to
Condor cluster engine,
and which allows submission of parallel computational jobs,
management of algorithms, data and visualization of results.
How it can be useful?
With Webolab GUI and Condor cluster engine you can build lightweight virtual labs for research or educational purposes.
Usage of the software does not require deep knowledge of cluster configuration and manipulation details.
It allows job submission and result analysis over the web, enabling easy access by remote
researches to common projects and shared computational resources.
Why do we need just another cluster software application?
Indeed there are lots of different software packages aimed at cluster, grid and cloud computing. However, we feel
they are too complicated for nonspecialist in the field of computing, especially for smaller teams of researches.
Having in mind popularity of Condor cluster engine,
a reasonable alternative was EasyCondor web interface developed at Indiana University, but it is not maintained anymore.
In addition, Webolab is well suitable for Windows based environments,
where a demand for simple clustering solutions is growing.
What applications can be run over Webolab environment?
Any compiled console executable can be run over Webolab interface. If the compiler is installed on the cluster
nodes, a code library can be compiled from the source. Currently Webolab comes with predefined scripts to work with
Matlab, GNU Octave,
Scilab and Java source files.
On what technology it is built?
Webolab is built using Java (J2SE) and JSP technology. Currently it runs on Apache Tomcat server,
while testing on other servers are on the future plans.
Initially the project is configured and tested on Windows based servers,
migration to Linux/Unix platforms is straightforward.
What is the license?
The software comes under
GNU General Public License (GPL).
What are release plans?
Currently we are working on public beta version 0.9, which will be released at the end of May 2009.
A stable release version 0.9 will be available in autumn 2009.
During this year we plan to collect user comments and recommendations and continue with version 1.0 in year 2010.
What is represented on site's logo image?
No, this not a neural network, and not a computer generated image. It is a photograph of water droplets on a spider's web.
Image courtesy of Dan Stefan.
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