ScienceBox 2.0: Evolving the demonstrator package for CERN storage and analysis services

Abstract

With containers being the de-facto standard to package, distribute, and run applications, Helm charts are on the rise for application deployment in managed clusters (e.g., Kubernetes, OpenShift), providing developers and operators with a rich ecosystem of tools to utilize, as well as the means to configure applications and roll changes out in a programmatic way. This paper describes the reboot of the ScienceBox project: The containerized software bundle providing the ability to deploy CERN storage and analysis services on any cloud or local infrastructure. While the service offering provided through ScienceBox remains unchanged, we evolved the original implementation to make use of Helm charts across the entire stack and incorporated a major architectural update to CERNBox, replacing the previous PHP backend with a distributed microservices architecture. ScienceBox maintains the flexibility to be deployed in a few clicks for demonstration purposes, or scaled out on managed clusters for the provisioning of a multi-user service. It also removes external dependencies by deploying additional services (e.g., IDP, DBs) and facilitates the configuration of the service stack by providing automated configuration scripts, making the package fully self-contained and easy to use.