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The new OpenMOLE is Mostly Magic!

The OpenMOLE team is very proud to disclose “Mostly Magic”, the 6th major version of OpenMOLE!

As a reminder, OpenMOLE is a software for parameter exploration, optimisation, data processing which allow a simple access to large scale distributed execution environments. It has been designed to be useful for a wide range of users and is usable even for people with no knowledge in distributed computing.

You can discover and download this free and open-source software at https://www.openmole.org

If you want to try OpenMOLE without installing it, you can go here : http://demo.openmole.org. Click on “connect” without entering a password and then click ont the little cart to install examples. This is a very raw first version of the OpenMOLE demo site; it reset every 2 hours and has not been designed to support multiple users, but it gives you a good idea of how it works.

What’s new?

  • A new task has been introduced, the CARETask. It makes it easier than ever to run your applications and their dependencies (C, Python, R, …) in OpenMOLE
  • The access to EGI is now base on DIRAC and webdav. It is more reliable, more scalable an more efficient
  • A Path type is now available in samplings to avoid copying files over local networks (use with Clusters and shared file systems only, not on EGI)
  • Authentications are now tested when they are created. Valid authentications methods are marked with a green OK tag and can be used in the workflow
  • The optimisation methods have been redesigned to be easier to use
  • A new import wizard is here to ease the integration of your programs in OpenMOLE
  • The file browser of the GUI has been revamped and its now fast and handy
  • The execution panel has been widely improved.
  • A new democratic (or is it?) process to decide on the release name 🙂

What’s to come in next release?

  • First we plan to avoid as much as possible the long release cycles such as this one, we will make our best to shorten the release cycle of OpenMOLE to a few months.
  • A new website is under development (thanks Paul & Etienne aka jQuery team)
  • The documentation will be emporered with a search function in the documentation (thanks Julien!!!)
  • A new ContainerTask will offer support for Docker / OCI containers
  • A modular OpenMOLE, with additional plugins enabled on demand
  • Improvement of the interface to be even more user friendly, with more tooltips and integrated help.
  • Tutorials can be written in markdown!

What’s on our mind for 2017?

  • A multi-user version that you can install on a server and be used by several user at the same time
  • The possibility to delegate computation to cloud provider such as Amazon, Azure… and cloud middleware such as open stack.

“Wow, that’s exciting, how can I help if…”

“I’ m a beginner?”

  • suggest features through issues
  • contribute to the documentation
  • spread the word!
  • “I’m an advanced user but I’m not sure I can hack in OpenMOLE?”
  • write tutorials
  • share your workflows on the Market
  • invite us for tutorials / give a tutorial yourself (we can help!)

“I speak Scala?”

  • implement features 🙂
  • check the issue list and try to fix things (we’ll introduce finer labelling for easy picks)

“Great is that all?”

That’s already a lot! But if you like OpenMOLE show it to the world:

  • Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenMOLE
  • Star us on GitHub: https://github.com/openmole/openmole
  • Cite our papers https://www.openmole.org/who_are_we.html

You can always test the development version of OpenMOLE at https://next.openmole.org. If you encounter bugs or difficulty, we always love to hear about it.

To contact us you can:

  • join the mailing list to post your problems http://list.openmole.org
  • report bug / suggest features on github: https://github.com/openmole/openmole.
  • get support and chat with us at: https://chat.iscpif.fr/channel/openmole

We’d like to thanks the vibrant OpenMOLE community of developers and users. The community is really involved and it is a pleasure to work with you all!