The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has released version 3.0 of Open OnDemand, a web-based client portal used by high performance computing (HPC) centers around the globe, to offer clients easier ways to customize and manage their work.
With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), OSC developed and launched version 1.0 of Open OnDemand in 2017. The portal is based on OSC’s original OnDemand gateway, which allows clients to seamlessly connect to the Center’s supercomputing clusters, submit and monitor jobs, manage files and run applications.
Clients can access the supercomputing power of HPC centers with Open OnDemand installed at any time from any location. Nearly 400 HPC centers around the world have deployed the portal over the last six years.
Open OnDemand developers at OSC and project partner institutions Virginia Tech and the University of Buffalo have worked with HPC community members at institutions such as Harvard University and CSC Finland to make significant advancements to the platform to continue to improve the user experience.
“The HPC community has provided substantial feedback to our developers that we have used to offer major new features in Open OnDemand,” said Dave Hudak, OSC executive director and the principal investigator on the NSF awards. “We are excited to help academic and commercial clients advance their research and innovative work with version 3.0.”
Several new features in version 3.0 provide significant customization capabilities for sites, including:
- Navbar Configurations: Nearly every aspect of the navbar now can be customized.
- Profiles: With contributions from Harvard, clients now can toggle between profiles that significantly alter the appearance.
- Custom Landing Pages: Sites now can create custom landing pages with dedicated URLs to directly access them.
Version 3.0 also provides many new features related to apps, such as:
- Quick Launch Apps: These are versions of apps with all the parameters hard-coded, allowing for one-click launching.
- Recently Used Apps: These are automatically generated quick-launch apps that appear on the dashboard.
- Running Sessions Widget: Active interactive sessions now can be displayed directly on the dashboard.
Some additional general features now available in version 3.0 are:
- Remote Files Support: With contributions from CSC Finland, rclone integration is now available in the files app.
- Help Ticket Integration: Clients now can email help tickets to support staff directly from the session cards.
- Additional OS Support: Packages now are available for additional versions of RHEL and Ubuntu.
Full release notes can be viewed at openondemand.org/releasenotes.
The HPC community is invited to join a “Tips and Tricks” webinar at 1 p.m. ET on the first Thursday of every month to share best practices for setting up and using Open OnDemand. Registration is open for the next webinar on April 6.
The Open OnDemand development team also hosts Zoom open office hours from 11:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. ET on the second Tuesday of every month to field questions and suggestions.
Find a full list of webinars and office hours on the Open OnDemand events page.
To learn more about how to install, run or get support for Open OnDemand, visit https://openondemand.org.
About OSC: The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) addresses the rising computational demands of academic and industrial research communities by providing a robust shared infrastructure and proven expertise in advanced modeling, simulation and analysis. OSC empowers scientists with the services essential to making extraordinary discoveries and innovations, partners with businesses and industry to leverage computational science as a competitive force in the global knowledge economy and leads efforts to equip the workforce with the key technology skills required for 21st century jobs.
