Title: Simulation as a service (SMaaS): a cloud-based framework to support the educational use of scientific software

Authors: Thomas Bitterman; Prasad Calyam; Alex Berryman; David E. Hudak; Lin Li; Alan Chalker; Steve Gordon; Da Zhang; Da Cai; Changpil Lee; Rajiv Ramnath

Addresses: Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University, 1224 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212, USA ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, 395 Dreese Laboratories, 2015 Neil Ave., Columbus OH, 43210, USA ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, 395 Dreese Laboratories, 2015 Neil Ave., Columbus OH, 43210, USA ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, 395 Dreese Laboratories, 2015 Neil Ave., Columbus OH, 43210, USA ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, 395 Dreese Laboratories, 2015 Neil Ave., Columbus OH, 43210, USA

Abstract: Large manufacturers increasingly leverage modelling and simulation to improve quality and reduce cost. Small manufacturers have not adopted these techniques due to sizable upfront costs for expertise, software and hardware. The software as a service (SaaS) model provides access to applications hosted in a cloud environment, allowing users to try services at low cost and scale as needed. We have extended SaaS to include high-performance computing-hosted applications, thus creating simulation as a service (SMaaS). Polymer portal is a first-generation SMaaS platform designed to integrate access to multiple modelling, simulation and training services. Polymer portal provides a number of features including an e-commerce front end, common AAA service, and support for both cloud-hosted virtual machine (VM) images and high-performance computing (HPC) jobs. It has been deployed for six months and has been used successfully for a number of training and simulation activities. This paper describes the requirements, challenges, design and implementation of the polymer portal.

Keywords: cloud computing; high-performance computing; HPC; software as a service; SaaS; simulation as a service; SMaaS; educational use; scientific software; modelling; training; polymer manufacturing; polymer portal; virtual machines; polymers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCC.2014.062272

International Journal of Cloud Computing, 2014 Vol.3 No.2, pp.177 - 190

Published online: 02 Jul 2014 *

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