View source for FHNManager portlet

[[Category:Administrator's Guide]]

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This page describes how to use FHNManager Portlet, the GUI designed to exploit [[FHNManager | FHNManager Service facilities]].

The portlet is conceived to enable the management of FHN (Federated Hosting Node) instances by relying on the federated cloud provider registered in the infrastructure.

In this page it is described 
* the [[#Conceptual_Model | conceptual model]] underlying the portlet design (i.e. the concepts a user is requested to deal with), 
* the [[#GUI_Overview | structure of the GUI]]
* how to exploit the offered facilities.

==Conceptual Model==


The FHNManager Portlet is a portlet offering facilities to exploit the FHNManager capabilities. Target users of this portlet are both infrastructure and VRE Managers, that will use it in order to monitor and control the virtual machines created via FHNManager service.

Built on top of gCube framework and according to Liferay specifications, the portlet uses these technologies to discover and connect to the FHNManager service, gathers information on the current status of the federated infrastructure, modifies it through service's API and shares information with other users through the portal's social facilities implemented by gCube.

Portlet main use cases are:
* CRUD operations on FHNManager data model entities
* start/stop of federated hosting nodes
* report generation and sharing

The portlet implementation is based on the GWT framework and Java 7. It is deployed in the D4Science portal, and exposed to the VREs configured to exploit FHNManager facilities. Access to the portlet is controlled by portal policies, enforced by means of the infrastructure capabilities involving the Information system, Accounting and Authorization systems.


To better understand the logic involved in managing FHNs, we present here the conceptual resources model involved in the application.

The four resources types of the model are : 
*'''Remote Node''' : A resource of this kind represents an instance of ''hosting node'' created in a federated cloud provider and accessible from the current scope;
*'''Service Profile''' : A resource of this kind represents the configuration of a specific ''gCube Service'' that has been already registered among '''VM Provider'''s, and it's used to create new '''Remote Node'''s;
*'''VM Template''' : A resource of this kind represents a specific virtual machine template exposed by the '''VM Provider'''s;
*'''VM Provider''':  A resource of this kind represents a specific cloud provider registered in the current scope.

==GUI Overview==
[[Image:FHNManager_portlet_overview.png]]

The GUI has the following main sections :
 
*[[#Resource Panel | Resource Panel]] : navigates through views;
*[[#Resource Grid | Resource Grid]] : lists current view's accessible resources;
*[[#Toolbar | Toolbar]] : operates on selected nodes;
*[[#Pinned Resources | Pinned Resources]] : lists pinned resources;

===Resources Panel===
The '''Resources Panel''' exposes different views of the exiting resources, one per kind of resource (see [[#Conceptual Model | Conceptual Model]]).
This section controls appearance and behavior of the other sections accordingly to the kind of resource selected by the user.

===Resources Grid===
The '''Resources Grid''' section lists all existing resources of the kind related to selected view (see [[#Resources Panel | Resources Panel]]).
For each listed resource basic information are displayed along with a checkbox that permits the selection of a specific resource in order to manage it through the [[#Toolbar | Toolbar]] section.

===Toolbar===
The '''Toolbar''' section presents the current view name along with buttons to manage selected resources (see [[#Resources Grid | Resources Grid]]).
Buttons behavior change according to selected view, offering an interface as much homogeneous as possible between views.

Shown buttons are : 
*'''Reload''' : refreshes the [[#Resources Grid | Resources Grid]];
*'''Pin Resource''' : pins the currently selected resource (see [[#Pinned Resources | Pinned Resources]]);
*'''Create New''' : shows a form/wizard to create a new resource which type corresponds to currently selected view (see [[#Resources Panel | Resources Panel]]);
*'''Delete''' : deletes the currently selected resource from the system (see [[#Pinned Resources | Pinned Resources]]);
*'''Start Node''' : starts the currently selected ''Remote Node'' - available only in ''Remote Nodes'' view (see [[#Resources Panel | Resources Panel]]);
*'''Stop Node''' : stops the currently selected ''Remote Node'' - available only in ''Remote Nodes'' view (see [[#Resources Panel | Resources Panel]]);

===Pinned Resources===
The '''Pinned Resources''' section permits more in-depth information about ''pinned'' resources. Once a resource is ''pinned'' (see [[#Toolbar | Toolbar]]), it's listed in this section as a button itself. By clicking it, information on the ''pinned'' resource and its related resource are shown in a popup. To remove a ''pinned'' resource from the section, just click on the related ''close'' ('X') button.

==Technology==

Current version of the portlet (1.0.0) relies on the following third-party technologies :
*''gwt.2.7.0''
*''gwt-bootstrap.2.3.2.0''
*''liferay portal 6.0.6''.

It also relies on the following gcube technologies :
*''application support layer''
*''fhn-manager-client''


===Installation===
Obtain last stable war from gcube distribution and deploy it in a gCube Portal in order to have it available to show to VRE/VO managers.

===Configuration===
The portlet relies on portal's scope and user management facilities, thus no additional configuration is needed.