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Data Transfer Tools

Globus Online

Overview

Globus Online is a fast, reliable file transfer service that makes it easy for users to move data between two GridFTP servers or between a GridFTP server and a user’s machine (windows, mac or linux).

Globus Online automates the activity of managing file transfers: monitoring performance, retrying failed transfers, recovering from faults automatically whenever possible, and reporting status. No custom infrastructure is required – Globus Online is software-as-a-service that can be used today without building any features yourself.

This Quick Start is for users wanting to Transfer files between hosts configured for Globus Online access. If you are a sysadmin and need to configure your hosts for Globus Online access, see our Globus Online Sysadmin Guide.

  1. Sign in to Globus Online (using your Globus Online username and password)
  2. Select ‘Start Transfer’ under ‘File Transfer’, or from the drop down menu in the top bar.
  3. In the ‘Start Transfer’ page, you can view the list of available endpoints by clicking the button on the ‘Endpoint’ drop down box.
    • NERSC and Argonne’s data transfer nodes (nersc#dtn and alcf#dtn), ESNet’s IO testers (esnet#anl-diskpt1, esnet#bnl-diskpt1, esnet#lbl-diskpt1)
    • You can type letters into the box to filter endpoints.
  4. For example, when you select the nersc#dtn endpoint, a login window will pop up. You can access the NERSC endpoints on Globus Online by simply using your NERSC username and password. Enter your NERSC username in the ‘Username’ field and NERSC password (not the SSH passphrase) in the ‘Passphrase’ field and click ‘Authenticate’. You can ignore the other fields.
  5. You will see a listing of the contents of your home directory at NERSC. Double click on a directory to view its contents.
  6. Select a file or directory and click on the highlighted ‘arrow button’ to initiate the transfer.

The procedure is same for other endpoints, including ALCF BlueGene/P (alcf#dtn), etc.

ESNet IO testers (available as esnet#anl-diskpt1, esnet#bnl-diskpt1, esnet#lbl-diskpt1 on Globus Online) are anonymous GridFTP servers, so you do not need to provide a username and password to access those.