CoESRA V 4.0 Release

Goals

• The goal of the project is to develop, deliver and manage scalable virtual desktop environment accessible via a web browser as part of EcoCloud compute platform,
• The virtual desktop should have access to data platform and shared storage infrastructure for seamless access to different storage capabilities,
• Enable computational researchers to share their data and analysis pipeline with others,
• Interoperate with other compute platforms like RStudio and Jupyter notebook environment. 

Background and strategic fit

Release Date: 16 Oct 2018 

Version: V 4.0

Release details

New Features:

• Implemented Keycloak to manage identity and Access Management. 
• Added login support for Google account using Keycloak.
• Ability to access Ubuntu and CentOS machines with user-defined configuration
• New tools added to Virtual Desktop including Biodiverse, MacroecoDesktop.
• direct access to TERN OzFlux data from the Virtual desktop.
• Added 'System' tab to display current CoESRA usage stats.
• 'Usage History' shows the last 5 jobs submitted by the current logged in user.
• Upload/download files between the virtual desktop and the host computer.
• New 'CoESRA Help' on the virtual desktop.
• Added 'partners' page to 'About' menu.
• User communication plan using Mailchimp is successfully implemented.

Fixes:

• Fixed operating system name to remove '.img' suffix.
• Fixed desktop launcher icon image.

Improvements:

• Improved the backend registration process. Eliminated the registration form. The new user will be automatically registered within 5mins after logging in.
• Improved the 'dashboard' UI.
• Updated FAQ, Policy and Services page to align with the new version.
• Redesigned the desktop image for virtual desktop.
• Upgraded Firefox and ownCloud client versions in the virtual desktop to the latest.
• Removed EcoStore from virtual desktop replace with "Data Store".