Software Portal Hosting, Distribution & Brokerage Service Phase 2

An open portal development environment, a hosting service for the portal products, and an integrated web based electronic commerce (ecommerce) system designed to broaden the use of digital analysis computing (DAC) and model based simulation by the tiered chain of manufacturers supplying the tier 1 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Develop Software Portal Hosting, Distribution and Access Infrastructure Integrated with Nimbis Services

Nimbis’ software portal hosting, distribution, and brokerage service concept is based on traditional web marketplace hosting, where the hosting company provides common components for building a storefront (account management, order processing, order tracking, etc.) and then allows the vendors to get on with serving their products to their niche markets. This business model is very successful for products and services companies. Nimbis applies this marketplace approach to application services driven by high performance computing (HPC). The vendors (sellers) in this case are engineering services companies with application domain expertise and independent software vendors that provide consulting and support services. The customers (buyers) are manufacturing companies with entry-level, experimental, and/or periodic users of technical computing applications for modeling and simulation of their designs.

The end commercial product will be a tightly integrated turn-key commercial package, incorporating a portal development environment, a hosting service for the new domain specific portal application products, and a web based ecommerce Digital Manufacturing Portal storefront with low barrier, on-demand, click-through access to the software and services hosted on the portal. Achieving the end commercial product requires three development phases. Phase 1, this phase, establishes a design architecture and a Phase 2 development plan. Phase 2 will establish a working prototype and a Phase 3 commercialization plan. Phase 3 will result in the deployed end commercial product. 

The end result of the project is a beta tested Digital Manufacturing Portal (DMP) prototype and a commercialization plan update. The prototype was demonstrated by Nimbis to DARPA program management in 2012. The final update to the commercialization plan was submitted to DARPA.

Building the prototype started with the existing Nimbis Cloud Portal (NCP) baseline as described in the Baseline Execution Plan. Task 1 involved the development of the Digital Manufacturing Storefront (DMS). The DMS implements the ecommerce portal extensions as described in the System Design Document. Task 2 involved the development of the Portal Development Environment (PDE). The PDE implements the portal development tools also described in the System Design Document.Task 3 was a concept demonstration of the software in an integrated DMP prototype.  Task 4 integrated a set of web portal applications (Manifold Flow Predictor, Heat Sync Predictor, and Abaqus Remote Desktop) hosted at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) under the National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium (NDEMC) program. The seller role creation and hosting of a product was demonstrated by deploying a test product on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Task 5 demonstrated the first use by a software vendor to create and host a portal on the DMP prototype.

Nimbis is working with the National Center for Manufacturing Services (NCMS) who is partnering with the federal government, vendors, academia, and manufacturers to create a network of Predictive Innovation Centers (PICs). These centers will offer educational resources, project collaboration, and access to technical computing applications for small to medium sized manufacturers to affordably access modeling and simulation resources in the cloud. Visitors to the PICs will discover Nimbis and be redirected to the Nimbis site for buying and selling opportunities in our technical computing marketplace. As described previously, visitors to the site may signup for an account and register to purchase and sell products.

SPONSOR / PARTNER
DARPA

DESCRIPTION
Small Business Innovation Research Project
Phase 2

YEAR
2012

TOPIC
Software Portal Hosting, Distribution & Brokerage Service

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Brian Schott
Mark Gray

PRINCIPAL-IN-CHARGE
Robert Graybill