Experience In Developing Dynamic Web Interfaces:

The Case Study of the ALICE Job Reliability Dashboard

Eamonn Maguire

IT-PSS

30-Aug-2007

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• Creating the dashboard for the GRID Reliability Section

• Improving backend performance for queries

• Creating automated agents to produce reports at certain times of the month and/or day

• Creating logos for different software in the IT Department

• Investigating new ways to display data

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• Complete overhaul of user interface to make it more appealing to users

• Creation of various plots to display site efficiency, error progression and so forth on various sites

• Front end dashboard home page with a snapshot of the GRID reliability for the current month

• Performance enhancement:

• Caching of frequently used plots

• Quicker queries

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• Partitioning of large database tables

• Reduction of data:

• Loop patterns matched to a standard pattern to improve query speed (less patterns means a quicker table search)

E.g. SUBMITTED WAITING RUNNING DONE

• Analysis of query speeds for all queries on Data Access Layer and improving performance through standard Oracle practices

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• Automated creation of:

• Monthly Report on Waiting Times to be used inside ROOT (as requested by Rene Brun)

• Site Efficiency Details everyday

• Generic plots which are frequently accessed (e.g. home plots for site efficiency, performance and the like)

• Frequently used data

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• During my time at CERN, I have also investigated new ways to improve the dashboard. This namely involved AJAX technologies and Flash charts which both improve the usability of the dashboard and the quality of the charts.

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• AJAX Enabled graph pages currently in development

• Using X509 Certificates to save user settings for front dashboard automatically – this will also authenticate users on the dashboard

• Implementing a FusionChart Plot library for easy integration with existing applications

• Test Suite for developers to test their stylesheets quickly and interactively – User interface in development.

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• I have produced logos for some of the software produced by the IT department for the GRID and I would be happy to produce more for any other ALICE component.

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Thank you to everyone who has helped me during my time at CERN especially my

supervisor Pablo Saiz. I would also like to thank Ricardo Rocha and Benjamin Gaidioz for

their invaluable help and everyone else for making my time here informative, rewarding

and fun.http://dashb-alice.cern.ch/dashboard/

request.py/Home

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