Rapid: Giving Computational Science a Friendly Face
Rapid is a cost-effective and efficient way of designing and delivering portal interfaces to tasks that require remote compute resources. The aim of Rapid is to make completing these tasks as simple as purchasing a book or booking a flight on the web.
The philosophy of Rapid is to deliver customised graphical user interfaces that enable domain specialists to achieve their tasks. These tasks make use of domain-specific applications that run on remote compute resources; a requirement which is satisfied by translating the task into one or several computational jobs to be performed on Grid and Cloud Computing infrastructures, and High-Performance Computing facilities.
Customised interfaces allow tasks to be performed without referring to terminology about the underlying computational infrastructure. Moreover, the system allows to expose particular features of applications as not to overwhelm the user.
Where to start
Have a look at what Rapid can produce in the form of a video. If you like it, then have a look at a short video that explains how to install Rapid and deliver your first portal. Move on to the basic tutorial and finally, consult the manual to unlock advanced features.
Relevant files and media
- Download the latest stable release: rapidportlet-2.0.tgz
- Manuals and tutorials: Rapid Manual (pdf), Rapid Tutorial (pdf), Screencast of installation (with LifeRay)
- We recommend to use Rapid in conjunction with LifeRay
- Screencast videos of successful portals: Image Processing Example, Microscopy, Seismology, Earthquake Prediction, Nano-Engineering, Chemistry and Brain Imaging
- Media and dissemination: European Seismology Newsletter, OMII-UK News Article, Flyer, Beliefproject: Zero-In
- Publications: Inorganic Experiments, Portals for the life sciences and IEEE e-Science
- Development pages: SourceForge
Funding and support
The development and application of Rapid is funded by EPSRC, BBSRC, NERC, JISC, ENGAGE (JISC) and OMII-UK (EPSRC)
Rapid News
New version Rapid 2.0 released!
19 May 2011 - 2:23pm — Jos.KoetsierWith Rapid it is now even easier to develop advanced computational portals in a
very short time. The syntax has been simplified and many powerful features have
been added. A few examples:
- new 'static' variables
- better security options with ssh
- vastly improved 'browser' element
- simplified syntax
- array jobs
- 'id' and 'class' tags can make use of web frameworks
Generating web-based user interfaces for computational science
18 February 2011 - 9:31am — Jano.van.HemertPublication Type:
Journal ArticleSource:
Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Wiley, Volume 23, p.256--268 (2011)Abstract:
Scientific gateways in the form of web portals are becoming the popular approach to share knowledge
and resources around a topic in a community of researchers. Unfortunately, the development of web
portals is expensive and requires specialists skills. Commercial and more generic web portals have a much
larger user base and can afford this kind of development. Here we present two solutions that address this
problem in the area of portals for scientific computing; both take the same approach. The whole process
of designing, delivering and maintaining a portal can be made more cost-effective by generating a portal
from a description rather than programming in the traditional sense. We show four successful use cases to
show how this process works and the results it can deliver.
Special Issue: Portals for life sciences---Providing intuitive access to bioinformatic tools
18 February 2011 - 9:22am — Jano.van.HemertPublication Type:
Journal ArticleSource:
Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Wiley, Volume 23, Issue 23, p.223--234 (2011)Abstract:
The topic ‘Portals for life sciences’ includes various research fields, on the one hand many different
topics out of life sciences, e.g. mass spectrometry, on the other hand portal technologies and different
aspects of computer science, such as usability of user interfaces and security of systems. The main aspect
about portals is to simplify the user’s interaction with computational resources that are concerted to a
supported application domain.
Ms Sandra Gesing
24 August 2010 - 9:33am — Jano.van.HemertSandra will work with Jano and Jos to develop a portal for mass spectrometry tools using Rapid. She is in room 2.23.
Screencast: A Rapid portal for Parallel TCoffee running on HECToR
24 August 2010 - 8:30am — Jano.van.HemertWe show a screencast of a portlet created for Parallel TCoffee—the first parallel implementation of the TCoffee multiple sequence alignment tool. The portlet was developed using our Rapid technology and shows how TCoffee can be run on the UK National Academic Supercomputer HECToR. To see this demo you require Flash to be installed.
Surfing for earthquakes
20 August 2010 - 6:33pm — Jano.van.HemertA better understanding of the ground beneath our feet will result from research by seismologists and Rapid—a group of computer scientists at the University of Edinburgh. The Earth's structure controls how earthquakes travel and the damage they can cause. A clear picture of this structure would be extremely valuable to earthquake planners, but it requires the analysis of huge amounts of data.
Screencast:A Rapid portal for computational chemistry on HECToR, the UK-national academic supercomputer
13 August 2010 - 11:30am — Jano.van.HemertBelow a screencast where Rapid was used to develop a portal for the UK-national academic supercomputer HECToR. The portal shows how to setup an advanced compute job involving computational chemistry. You need Flash installed in the browser to watch the video below. Click here for a large version
Rapid Version 1.5.0 Released
2 August 2010 - 6:11pm — Jos.KoetsierThis new version of Rapid uses a new and faster build system based on Ant and Ivy that generates smaller portlets. File Browsers are improved and can be used to select multiple files at once. Error reporting is improved with the addition of Schematron Rapid now checks a large number of referential constraints. The Code Generation system has been rewritten and a number of bugs have been fixed.
TOPP goes Rapid
12 July 2010 - 3:12pm — Jano.van.HemertPublication Type:
Conference PaperSource:
Cluster Computing and the Grid, IEEE International Symposium on, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, p.598--599 (2010)ISBN:
978-0-7695-4039-9Abstract:
Proteomics, the study of all the proteins contained in a particular sample, e.g., a cell, is a key technology in current biomedical research. The complexity and volume of proteomics data sets produced by mass spectrometric methods clearly suggests the use of grid-based high-performance computing for analysis. TOPP and OpenMS are open-source packages for proteomics data analysis; however, they do not provide support for Grid computing. In this work we present a portal interface for high-throughput data analysis with TOPP. The portal is based on Rapid, a tool for efficiently generating standardized portlets for a wide range of applications. The web-based interface allows the creation and editing of user-defined pipelines and their execution and monitoring on a Grid infrastructure. The portal also supports several file transfer protocols for data staging. It thus provides a simple and complete solution to high-throughput proteomics data analysis for inexperienced users through a convenient portal interface.
