Presented at GCE11 workshop at SC11, Seattle, WA, November 18th, 2011

1. Building Science Gateways with
Apache Rave
Marlon Pierce
Science Gateway Group
Indiana University

2. Apache Rave Overview
• Rave is an Apache incubator for building a Web portal
on the Open Social and W3C Widget specifications.
– Joint effort of Mitre, Hippo Software, SURFnet, and the
OGCE project
– Replaces the OGCE Gadget Container
• Goal 1: Provide a useable, packaged, downloadable
OpenSocial portal.
– Get started with minimal hassle.
• Goal 2: Provide a platform for non-invasive developer
extensions, customizations
– Science gateways, for example

3. Gadget Dashboard
View
Gadget Store
View

4. Mobile View

5. Rave Building Blocks
• Rave is implemented in JavaScript, Java with
Spring MVC
– Bean initialization specified in XML configuration files.
– Inversion of Control makes it easy to swap out
implementations.
– Disciplined MVC through Java annotations
• Builds on Apache Shindig and Wookie
– Provide layout management, user management,
administration tools, production backend data
systems, etc.

6. Rave Components
Component Description
Models User, Page, Region, RegionWidget. These are interfaces with
default implementations
Controllers Associates a specific URL with backing code to render JSP views
or provide access to REST and RPC services.
Services Internal services that implement a specific action, such as
adding a new user to the repository.
Repositories Control Object-Relational Mappings between model objects and
backend storage.
Views User interfaces implemented as JSPs. These include welcome
pages, layout managers for both standard and mobile views,
administration pages, and widget store pages.

7. Rave Configuration Files
Configuration File Description Developer
Modifications
applicationContext.xml Instantiatesall beans, Addnew Java Beans here
controllers, and to support extensions.
services.
applicationContext- Specifies allowedURL Change the default
security.xml patterns,enables authentication module
OpenID support, and to or expose additional
specifies the REST services.
authentication provider.
dataContext.xml Used to set up the Override default data
default H2 database and store, initial population
to populate it with methods.
demo accounts.

8. Extending Rave
• Rave is designed to be extended.
– Good design (interfaces, easily pluggable
implementations) and code organization are
required.
– It helps to have a diverse, distributed developer
community
• How can you work on it if we can’t work on it?
• Rave is also packaged so that you can extend it
without touching the source tree.

9. Rave Developer Dependencies
Component Description
rave-portal- Maven POM file listing all Rave-
dependencies producedJARs and third-party
dependencies.
rave-portal-resources Java WAR file containing all Rave
Web resources
rave-shindig Java WAR file containing Rave
modifications and extensions to
Apache Shindig

10. Rave Extension General Steps
• Download and install Rave’s source
– “mvn clean install” puts JARs, WARs, and POMs
into your local Apache Maven repository.
• Create a new Apache Maven project
– You’ll need rave-portal-dependencies POM in your
<dependencies/>.
– Include any configuration files that you would like
to modify.
– Include the source code for your extensions.

11. Case Study: GridShib and Community
Credentials
• XSEDE Science Gateways use shared
community credentials when accessing
backend resources.
– Many portal users map to one community
account.
• GridShib adds attributes to grid credentials
– Gateway membership, originating IP address, user
email, creation time, etc.
• For Rave, we’ll have to change the User
service implementation to support this.

12. GridShib Step By Step
• Install Rave in your Maven repo.
• Create a Maven project with standard directory layout
for WAR packaging
• Create a new user service (ComUserService) for
obtaining a community credential and adding
GridShib attributes.
• Replace applicationContext-security.xml with your
version
• In the XML, replace the default UserService with
ComUserService.
• Place all GridShib resources in src/main/resources
• Place web.xml in src/main/webapp/WEB-INF
– You’ll need an additional listener to get the IP address.

13. GridShib and Rave Postmortem
• The full example is available from the
Rave sandbox SVN.
• It is also includes examples of how to
build new REST services.
• GridShib’s dependence on XML library
jars are a challenge for one step
packaging.
– These must be in an endorsed directory

14. The Apache Way
• Apache is open community, not just open source licensing
or code on the web.
• Projects start as incubators with 1 champion and several
mentors.
– Making good choices is very important
• Champion and mentors will judge you, help you on the
following
• Good, open engineering practices
– DEV mailing list design discussions, issue tracking
• Properly packaged code
– Build out of the box
– Licenses, disclaimers, notices, change logs, etc.
• Developer diversity
– Three or more unconnected developers

15. Apache and Science Gateways
• Apache rewards projects for cross-pollination.
– Connecting with complementary Apache projects
strengthens both sides.
– New requirements, new development methods
• Apache methods foster sustainability
– Building communities of developers, not just users
• Apache methods provide governance
– Incubators learn best practices from mentors
– Releases are peer-reviewed

16. More Information
• As an Apache Incubator, Rave welcomes
(and needs) new developer involvement
• Rave Web Site:
• Rave Developer List (public):
• Rave includes contributions from many
individuals.
Seehttp://incubator.apache.org/rave/for a
list of champions, mentors, and
contributors.