GT 4.0 Component Fact Sheet: WS MDS WebMDS

Table of Contents

1. Brief component overview
2. Summary of features
3. Usability summary
4. Backward compatibility summary
5. Technology dependencies
6. Tested platforms
6.1. Installing WebMDS on Windows
7. Associated standards
8. For More Information

1. Brief component overview

WebMDS enables end users to view monitoring information via a standard web browser interface, without installing any additional software on their PC. WebMDS is implemented as a servlet that uses a plugin interface to gather monitoring information (or any other information in XML format) and XSLT transforms, and present the data to the user in a readable form. Web site administrators can customize their own WebMDS deployments by using HTML form options, configuring different plugins to collect data and XSLT transforms, and creating their own plugins and XSLT transforms.

2. Summary of features

Features new in release 4.0:

  • Extensible plugin interface to support various mechanisms to gather monitoring information and XSLT transforms.
  • Plugins to acquire monitoring information via resource property mechanisms.
  • Plugin to acquire XSLT transforms by reading from local files.

Other Supported Features

  • WebMDS is a new component, so all its features are "new in release 4.0".

Deprecated Features

  • None

3. Usability summary

This section does not apply for WebMDS as it is a new component with this release.

4. Backward compatibility summary

Protocol changes since GT version 3.2:

  • WebMDS did not exist in GT version 3.2.

API changes since GT version 3.2:

  • WebMDS did not exist in GT version 3.2.

Exception changes since GT version 3.2:

  • WebMDS did not exist in GT version 3.2.

Schema changes since GT version 3.2:

  • WebMDS did not exist in GT version 3.2.

5. Technology dependencies

WebMDS depends on the following GT components:

  • Java WS Core

WebMDS depends on the following 3rd party software:

6. Tested platforms

Tested Platforms for WebMDS:

  • The WebMDS server has only been tested with Tomcat version 5.0.28; it has been tested on RedHat Linux (i386) and, to a lesser extent, on Windows XP.
  • On the client side, WebMDS should be accessible from any web browser on any platform.

6.1. Installing WebMDS on Windows

Although the WebMDS server is not officially supported on non-Unix platforms, and no Windows installer exists for WebMDS, it is possible to run WebMDS on Windows. The following instructions describe how to install WebMDS on a Windows platform.

  1. Install Tomcat and set your CATALINA_HOME environment variable to the directory into which Tomcat was installed.
  2. Install the Globus Java WS-Core distribution from the Globus Toolkit download page. Set your GLOBUS_LOCATION environment variable to the directory into which you installed Globus Java WS-Core
  3. Check the ws-mds distribution out of the Globus CVS repository, using the globus_4_0_branch tag.

  4. Install the servicegroup package:

    cd c:\wherever\ws-mds\servicegroup\schema
ant deploy
cd ..\source
ant deploy

    where wherever is the directory into which you checked out the ws-mds sources.

  5. Install WebMDS:

    cd c:\wherever\ws-mds\webmds
ant deploy

  6. Create the webmds context file (this tells Tomcat where to find WebMDS): 

    %GLOBUS_LOCATION%\lib\webmds\bin\webmds-create-context-file %CATALINA_HOME%\conf\Catalina\localhost
  7. Restart Tomcat.

WebMDS can then be configured and used as described in the rest of the WebMDS documentation.

7. Associated standards

Associated standards for WS MDS WebMDS:

  • HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
  • HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
  • XSL Transformations (XSLT)
  • WebMDS is implemented as a Java Servlet

8. For More Information

Click here for more information about this component.