The document discusses how the Globus platform can be leveraged to build science gateways, web portals, and other applications. It provides examples of how the Globus Auth, APIs, and Connect services can be used to enable authentication, file transfer, and data sharing. The Globus Python SDK and helper pages are also described as tools for developing applications that integrate Globus functionality.

1. Leveraging the Globus Platform
Vas Vasiliadis
vas@uchicago.edu
Columbia University – April 24, 2019

2. Globus serves as…
A platform for building science
gateways, web portals and
other applications in support of
research and education
2

3. Example web apps that leverage Globus
3

4. Globus Auth
(identity and access management)
…
GlobusAPIs
(Transfer,Search,Identifiers,…)
GlobusConnect
Data Automation
File Sharing
File Transfer, Sync
Globus Platform-as-a-Service

5. Globus Auth addresses security challenges
• Make it easy for developers to provide login for
their apps (web, mobile, desktop, command line)
• …and protect all REST API communications
o App à Globus service (MRDP, Jupyter Notebook)
o App à non-Globus service (graph service in MRDP)
o Service à Service
• …while
– Not introducing yet another identity
– Providing a platform to consolidate existing identities
– Providing a least privileges security model (via consents)
– Being web friendly and language/framework agnostic
5

6. Based on widely used web standards
• OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework (a.k.a. OAuth2)
• OpenID Connect Core 1.0 (a.k.a. OIDC)
• Access via OAuth2 and OIDC libraries of your choice
– Google OAuth Client Libraries, Apache mod_auth_openidc, etc.
– Globus Python SDK
6
docs.globus.org/api/auth

7. Authorization Code Grant
7
Client
(Web Portal,
Application,
Jupyter)
Globus Transfer
(Resource Server)
Globus Auth
(Authorization
Server)
5. Authenticate using client id
and secret, send authorization
code
Browser (User)
1. Access
portal
2.
Redirects
user
3. User authenticates and
consents
4. Authorization
code
6. Access token(s)
7. Authenticate with access
token(s) to give the client
the authority invoke the
transfer service
Identity
Provider

8. Globus Platform
Transfer API

9. Globus Transfer API
• Globus Web App consumes public Transfer API
• REST API: Resources/actions named by URL
– Query params allow refinement (e.g., filter)
• Globus APIs use JSON for documents and resource
representations
• Requests authorized via Globus Auth issued OAuth2
access token
– Authorization: Bearer asdflkqhafsdafeawk
docs.globus.org/api/transfer
9

10. Globus Python SDK
• Python client library for the Globus Auth and Transfer
REST APIs
• globus_sdk.TransferClient class handles
connection management, security, framing,
marshaling
from globus_sdk import TransferClient
tc = TransferClient()
globus.github.io/globus-sdk-python
10

11. TransferClient low-level calls
• Thin wrapper around REST API
– post(), get(), update(), delete()
get(path, params=None, headers=None, auth=None,
response_class=None)
o path – path for the request, with or without leading slash
o params – dict to be encoded as a query string
o headers – dict of HTTP headers to add to the request
o response_class – class response object, overrides the client’s
default_response_class
o Returns: GlobusHTTPResponse object
11

12. TransferClient higher-level calls
• One method for each API resource and HTTP verb
• Largely direct mapping to REST API
endpoint_search(filter_fulltext=None,
filter_scope=None,
num_results=25,
**params)
12

13. Globus Helper Pages
• Globus pages designed for use by your web apps
– Browse Endpoint
– Activate Endpoint
– Select Group
– Manage Identities
– Manage Consents
– Logout
docs.globus.org/api/helper-pages
13

14. Example
Modern Research
Data Portal
https://docs.globus.org/modern-research-data-portal/

15. API walkthrough using Jupyter Notebook
• Use the Globus JupyterHub: jupyter.demo.globus.org
– Sign in with Globus and verify the consents
– Click “Start My Server” (this will take about a minute)
– Navigate to: globus-jupyter-notebooks à GlobusWorldTour
– Open Platform_Introduction_Native_App_Auth.ipynb
• If you misstep and want to start over…
– Close your notebook and navigate back to the root folder
– Open and run the NotebookPuller.ipynb notebook
• Access Globus notebooks outside of our JupyterHub:
github.com/globus/globus-jupyter-notebooks
15

16. Endpoint Search
• Plain text search for endpoint
– Searches owner, display name, keywords, description,
organization, department
– Full word and prefix match
• Limit search to pre-defined scopes
– all, my-endpoints, recently-used, in-use, shared-
by-me, shared-with-me
• Returns: List of endpoint documents
16

17. Endpoint Management
• Get endpoint (by id)
• Update endpoint
• Create & delete (shared) endpoints
• Manage endpoint servers
17

18. Endpoint Activation
• Activating endpoint means binding a credential to an
endpoint for login
• Server endpoints that have MyProxy or MyProxy
OAuth identity provider require login via web
• Auto-activate
– Globus Connect Personal and Shared endpoints use Globus-
provided credential
– Must auto-activate before any API calls to endpoints
18

19. File operations
• List directory contents (ls)
• Make directory (mkdir)
• Rename
• Note:
– Path encoding & UTF gotchas
– Don’t forget to auto-activate first
19

20. Task submission
• Asynchronous operations
– Transfer
o Sync level option
– Delete
• Get submission_id, followed by submit
– Once and only once submission
20

21. Task management
• Get task by id
• Get task_list
• Update task by id (label, deadline)
• Cancel task by id
• Get event list for task
• Get task pause info
21

22. Shared endpoints and access rules (ACL)
• Shared Endpoint – create / delete / get info / get list
• Administrator role required to delegate access managers
• Access manager role required to manage
permissions/ACL
• Operations:
– Get list of access rules
– Get access rule by id
– Create access rule
– Update access rule
– Delete access rule
22

23. Management API
• Allow endpoint administrators to monitor and manage
all tasks with endpoint
– Task API is essentially the same as for users
– Information limited to what they could see locally
• Cancel tasks
• Pause rules
23

24. Globus PaaS developer resources
Python SDK
Sample
Application
docs.globus.org/api github.com/globus
Jupyter Notebook

25. Enabling large-scale
data intensive science
with Jupyter
25

26. @python_app
Logan Ward
Jupyter notebooks enable rapid iteration/results

27. But the data are big, distributed…
…and the science is collaborative
petrel.alcf.anl.gov
materialsdatafacility.org
2PB, 80Gbps store
3.2M materials data
Cooley: 290 TFLOPS
Query1 Share4
Transfer2
Learn3
Need multi-credential, multi-service authentication and data management

28. Hub
Configurable HTTP proxy
Authenticator
User DB
Spawner
Notebook
/api/auth
Browser
/hub/
/user/[name]/
• Multi-user hub
• Manages multiple instances
of Jupyter notebook server
• Configurable HTTP proxy
JupyterHub
Goal: Liberate the notebook!
• Tokens for remote services
• APIs for remote actions, e.g. data
management via Globus service
petrel.alcf.anl.gov

29. Securing JupyterHub with Globus Auth plugin
• Existing OAuth
framework
• Can restrict IdP
• Custom scopes
• Tokens passed into
notebook environment
github.com/jupyterhub/oauthenticator

30. github.com/jupyterhub/oauthenticator#globus-setup
Securing JupyterHub with Globus Auth

31. REST APIs
REST APIs
REST APIs
Bearer a45cd...
Hub
Configurable HTTP proxy
Authenticator
User DB
Spawner
Notebook
/api/auth
/hub/
/user/[name]/
login
Browser
{"tokens":...
{"tokens":...
Tokens in Jupyter notebooks
The world is your
oyster API…
• Globus Transfer
• Globus Search
• Your app
• Data portal
• Analysis engine
• …

32. Automated data analysis/results distribution
Notebook
Data
Repository
Bearer a45cd…
Dataset
Shared
endpoint
POST '/endpoint/a3c345f... /mkdir’
200 OK
...
X-Transfer-API-Version: 0.10
Content-Type: application/json
...
Analyze

33. Experiment with the demo notebook
• Login into our JupyterHub*: jupyter.demo.globus.org
• Launch (spawn) a notebook server; get tokens
• Access Globus APIs; download some data
• “Analyze” data (generate plot)
• PUT results (graph) on an HTTPS endpoint
*zero-to-jupyterhub.readthedocs.io

34. Pushing the automation
envelope
34

35. Our (simplistic) data flow thus far…
• Adequate for ad hoc sharing (implicit knowledge)
• Broader access, reuse requires “formalization”
• Leverage additional Globus platform services
Notebook
Data
Repository
Bearer a45cd…
Dataset
Shared
endpoint
POST '/endpoint/a3c345f... /mkdir’
200 OK
...
X-Transfer-API-Version: 0.10
Content-Type: application/json
...
Analyze

36. Globus Search
• Scalable service à billions of entries
• Schema agnostic: use standard (e.g. DataCite) or custom
metadata
• Fine grained access control: only returns results that are
visible to user
• Plain text search: ranked results
• Faceted search: facilitates data discovery
• Rich query language: ranges, expressions, regex, etc.
36
docs.globus.org/api/search

37. Persistent identifiers
• Developing service for issuing persistent identifiers
– DOI, ARK, Handle, Globus
– e.g. https://identifiers.globus.org/doi:10.1145/2076450.2076468
• Within a namespace, e.g. your DataCite namespace
– Control which identities/groups can create identifiers
• Identifier attributes:
– Link to data: one or more https URLs, to file, folder or manifest
– Landing page: provided by service, or by user
– Visibility: identities, groups that can see identifier
– Checksum: of the file or manifest
– Metadata: as required by identifier (e.g., DataCite), extensible
– Replaces/replaced-by: for versioning
37

38. SearchIdentifierDescribeTransferAuth
Extending the automation flow
• How can we enable data discovery using Globus
platform services?
Create
folder
Transfer
data
Get
metadata
Mint
persistent
identifier
Catalog
Get
credentials
Set ACL

39. Other Globus integrations
• Web app development frameworks (Flask, Django)
• Genomics analysis (Galaxy)
– galaxyproject.org/authnz/use/oidc/idps/globus
• Content management systems (WordPress, Drupal)
• Development tools (Confluence, Jira)
• Scalable cyberinfrastructure (Kubernetes)
globus-integration-examples.readthedocs.io

40. Example
Data Discovery Portal
https://petreldata.net

41. Support resources
• Globus documentation: docs.globus.org
• Sample code: github.com/globus
• Helpdesk and issue escalation: support@globus.org
• Customer engagement team
• Globus professional services team
– Assist with portal/gateway/app architecture and design
– Develop custom applications that leverage the Globus platform
– Advise on customized deployment and integration scenarios

42. Join the Globus community
• Access the service: globus.org/login
• Create a personal endpoint: globus.org/app/endpoints/create-gcp
• Documentation: docs.globus.org
• Engage: globus.org/mailing-lists
• Subscribe: globus.org/subscriptions
• Need help? support@globus.org
• Follow us: @globusonline