Helix/bwVisu/Getting Started

Motivation

When large quantities of scientific data is created (for example, from simulations), it is often necessary to employ hardware for further processing that is just as powerful as e.g. the HPC cluster that created the data in the first place. Transferring the data to a local workstation for visualization and analysis is typically not only time-consuming because of the data transfer itself, but the workstation may be ill-equipped to handle the workload. For such scenarios, remote solutions are needed, that employ powerful hardware and bring the applications to the data - and not vice versa.

bwVisu provides such a remote service. The user can log in to an intuitive web frontend which manages interactive jobs running on bwForCluster Helix. Once a job has been started, the user can connect to it such that the application appears in a browser window with full 3D hardware acceleration provided by the cluster. The only requirement on the client side is that the browser must support HTML5.

Registration

In order to use bwVisu, it is required to be a user of the bwForCluster Helix or a user of SDS@hd.

1. Register for the service bwVisu at bwServices.
2. bwVisu uses a 2-factor authentication (2FA) mechanism to increase security. If you have not registered a 2FA token at bwServices, an error message will appear. Use this link or select My Tokens in the main menu of bwServices. To register a new token, please follow these instructions. Please complete this step before continuing.
3. Once your registration has been completed, your user account will be set up. This can take up to 10 minutes, so please wait for around ten minutes before proceeding.

Login

1. Go to the bwVisu web frontend at bwvisu.bwservices.uni-heidelberg.de.
2. Login with the credentials of your home university and provide a 2FA token.

Usage

See here

Technical Information

Data storage

bwVisu provides no storage space. For data storage you have access to the filesystems of bwForCluster Helix and to SDS@hd.

Open OnDemand

bwVisu is based on Open OnDemand an open-source software platform designed to provide easy and streamlined access to high-performance computing (HPC) resources. Developed by the Ohio Supercomputer Center, it allows users to access HPC resources via a standard web browser, eliminating the need for a traditional command line interface.

The platform provides a range of tools and features. bwVisu uses it to provide the following features:

1. Web-based Access: Users can manage jobs, files, and data directly through their browser.
2. Interactive Applications:
• It supports GUI-based applications like Jupyter Notebooks and RStudio, enabling interactive computing and visualization.
• For most bwVisu applications you can connect to a running job with your browser.
• Some applications may require a dedicated desktop client.
3. Job Management: Users can easily submit and manage their interactive computing jobs on HPC resources. For members of bwForCluster Helix, the jobs can be monitored via the monitoring portal.
4. File Management: Provides a file browser that allows users to upload and manage their data files without needing to use command-line tools.