Fast Access to Remote Objects 2.0 - A renewed gateway to ENEAGRID distributed computing resources

This paper introduces a renewed gateway to ENEAGRID distributed computing resources, named Fast Access to Remote Objects 2.0 (FARO 2.0). FARO 2.0 is a tool for application and desktop virtualization with a strong focus towards user experience (UX), providing trained as well as untrained users a collection of centralized services that can be seamlessly used on their client through a remote desktop protocol. FARO 2.0 is a JavaFX application whose graphical user interface (GUI) and whose main logics has been implemented through the wellknown Web technologies (HTML5, CSS3, Javascript) for a easier maintainability and customizability, taking full advantage of the WebView component. Its framework has been deployed both as general purpose GUI for remote user access to ENEAGRID resources and as specialized application or workflow oriented GUI. They are applied in a set of applicative domains, ranging from material science to technologies for energy and industry, environmental modeling and nuclear fusion. Some examples and results are also presented. Keywords—graphical user interface; remote desktop; distributed computing; virtual labs