A Grid Web Portal For Molecular Dynamics Simulation Using Gromacs (GridMACS)

Abstract

          In the early 90s, the term ‘grid’, was used as an analogy to electrical grids providing electrical powers that can be easily accessible worldwide. Likewise in the computing world, the term ‘grid’ follows the same idea where computational powers and resources can be easily accessible. While the World Wide Web revolutionizes the availability of information sharing, the grid revolutionizes and leverages the sharing of resources and computational powers. Henceforth, in this era, the grid is fast becoming known as the next generation Internet with the use of grid technologies. The grid system architecture consists of the integration of the grid portal framework where the application resides, grid services, grid middleware and grid resources. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to develop a grid-enabled web portal with the aim of running Molecular Dynamics simulations namely, GROMACS, a protein simulation software. The portal project named GridMACS is developed by integrating the main grid layers such as the Gridsphere Portal Framework, Vine Toolkit (grid service) and Globus Toolkit (grid middleware) to a cluster. GridMACS serves as a proof of concept developed for better user experience on a grid environment and provides a platform for bioinformatics tools to be implemented in future. The portal is accessible on the internet at http://www.gridmacs.fbb.utm.my:8080/gridsphere/gridsphere.

Website : http://ir.fsksm.utm.my/58/