Project Deliverables - Software

So, what do we need to build to start our science experiment of building a secure data enclave in a public computing utility cloud?

Felicia and I have been talking about the list of software deliverables for the project. These flow from the high-level architecture diagram from my earlier post; if the high-level diagram is at the 10,000 foot level, then these items are at the 1,000 foot level. (And the Cloud Developer we are recruiting will take them down to the 1 foot level.)

I think we'll need six systems:

1. ACI Chooser - This is a public-facing webapp where the researcher selects options to configure the ACI. This might include the desired platform (Windows), desired analytic software (SAS), the allowable users (say a subset of people on the restricted-use contract), a zipped bundle of miscellaneous tools the researcher wants pre-loaded on the ACI, etc.
2. ACI Pre-Launcher - This is an ICPSR-facing (command-line?) utility for taking configuration information supplied by the researcher + restrictions associated with the dataset(s), and launching a customized ACI in the cloud for the researcher
3. ACI Post-Launcher - This is also an ICPSR-facing utility for customizing the ACI, but performs post-launch configuration of the instance. We may decide to couple #2 and #3 into a single tool.
4. ACI Watcher - This is a tool that monitors the availability and performance of each ACI. If the ACI is unavailable or sluggish, this will tell us.
5. ACI Dashboard - This is a tool that aggregates views of all ACIs, giving an overall view of the cloud provider and. Perhaps this would be public-facing if properly anonymous?
6. ACI Waste Manager - This tool securely and completely cleans up an ACI once the research has been complete. This tool will have done its job if there is no trace of the research or the data left in the cloud once the ACI has been terminated.

There are undoubtedly other items we'll also need, but this is a good starter list.