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1. INTRODUCTION
PRINCIPLES 2
3. GRID ARCHITECTURE
4. GRID APPLICATIONS
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grid Computing
INTRODUCTION
•Data services. These are concerned with proving secure access to distributed
datasets and their management. To provide a scalable storage and access to the
data sets, they may be replicated, catalogued, and even different datasets stored
in different locations to create an illusion of mass storage. The processing of
datasets is carried out using computational Grid services and such a
combination is commonly called data Grids. Sample applications that need such
services for management, sharing, and processing of large datasets are high-
energy physics and accessing distributed chemical databases for drug design.
•Information services. These are concerned with the extraction and presentation
of data with meaning by using the services of computational, data, and/or
application services. The low-level details handled by this are the way that
information is represented, stored, accessed, shared, and maintained. Given its
key role in many scientific endeavors, the Web is the obvious point of departure
for this level.
•Knowledge services. These are concerned with the way that knowledge is
acquired, used, retrieved, published, and maintained to assist users in achieving
their particular goals and objectives. Knowledge is understood as information
Grid computing can provide many benefits not available with traditional
computing models:
• Scalability — Grids can grow seamlessly over time, allowing many thousands
of processors to be integrated into one cluster. Components can be updated
independently and additional resources can be added as needed, reducing large
one-time expenses.
Levels of Deployment
• Cluster Grids
The simplest form of a grid, a Cluster Grid consists of multiple systems
interconnected through a network. Cluster Grids may contain distributed
workstations and servers, as well as centralized resources in a datacenter
environment. Typically owned and used by a single project or department,
Cluster Grids support both high throughput and high performance jobs.
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Grid Computing
Common examples of the Cluster Grid architecture include compute farms,
groups of multi-processor HPC systems, Beowulf clusters, and networks of
workstations (NOW).
• Enterprise Grids
As capacity needs increase, multiple Cluster Grids can be combined into
an Enterprise Grid. Enterprise Grids enable multiple projects or departments to
share computing resources in a cooperative way. Enterprise Grids typically
contain resources from multiple administrative domains, but are located in the
same geographic location.
• Global Grids
Global Grids are a collection of Enterprise Grids, all of which have
agreed upon global usage policies and protocols, but not necessarily the same
implementation. Computing resources may be geographically dispersed,
connecting sites around the globe. Designed to support and address the needs of
multiple sites and organizations sharing resources, Global Grids provide the
power of distributed resources to users anywhere in the world.
Figure 2 Three levels of grid computing: cluster, enterprise, and global grids.
Design Features
•Naming services. In a Grid, like in any distributed system, names are used to
refer to a wide variety of objects such as computers, services, or data objects.
The naming service provides a uniform name space across the complete Grid
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Grid Computing
environment. Typical naming services are provided by the international X.500
naming scheme or DNS, the Internet’s scheme.
•Distributed file systems and caching. Distributed applications, more often than
not, require access to files distributed among many servers. A distributed file
system is therefore a key component in a distributed system. From an
applications point of view it is important that a distributed file system can
provide a uniform global namespace, support a range of file I/O protocols,
require little or no program modification, and provide means that enable
performance optimizations to be implemented, such as the usage of caches.
•Security and authorization. Any distributed system involves all four aspects of
security: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and accountability. Security
within a Grid environment is a complex issue requiring diverse resources
autonomously administered to interact in a manner that does not impact the
usability of the resources or introduces security holes/lapses in individual
systems or the environments as a whole. A security infrastructure is the key to
the success or failure of a Grid environment.
•System status and fault tolerance. To provide a reliable and robust environment
it is important that a means of monitoring resources and applications is
provided. To accomplish this task, tools that monitor resources and application
need to be deployed.
•Resource management and scheduling. The management of processor time,
memory, network, storage, and other components in a Grid is clearly very
important. The overall aims to efficiently and effectively schedule the
applications that need to utilize the available resources in the Grid computing
environment. From a user’s point of view, resource management and scheduling
should be transparent; their interaction with it being confined to a manipulating
mechanism for submitting their application. It is important in a Grid that a
resource management and scheduling service can interact with those that may
be installed locally.
GRID ARCHITECTURE
Our goal in describing our Grid architecture is not to provide a complete
enumeration of all required protocols (and services, APIs, and SDKs) but rather
to identify requirements for general classes of component. The result is an
extensible, open architectural structure within which can be placed solutions to
key VO requirements. Our architecture and the subsequent discussion organize
components into layers, as shown in Figure. Components within each layer
share common characteristics but can build on capabilities and behaviors
provided by any lower layer.
The Grid Fabric layer provides the resources to which shared access is
mediated by Grid protocols: for example, computational resources, storage
systems, catalogs, network resources, and sensors. A “resource” may be a
logical entity, such as a distributed file system, computer cluster, or distributed
computer pool; in such cases, a resource implementation may involve internal
protocols (e.g., the NFS storage access protocol or a cluster resource
management system’s process management protocol), but these are not the
concern of Grid architecture.
Storage resources: Mechanisms are required for putting and getting files.
Third-party and high-performance (e.g., striped) transfers are useful. So are
mechanisms for reading and writing subsets of a file and/or executing remote
Single sign on. Users must be able to “log on” (authenticate) just once and
then have access to multiple Grid resources defined in the Fabric layer, without
further user intervention.
Applications
The final layer in our Grid architecture comprises the user applications
that operate within a VO environment. Figure illustrates an application
programmer’s view of Grid architecture. Applications are constructed in terms
of, and by calling upon, services defined at any layer. At each layer, we have
well-defined protocols that provide access to some useful service: resource
management, data access, resource discovery, and so forth. At each layer, APIs
may also be defined whose implementation (ideally provided by third-party
SDKs) exchange protocol messages with the appropriate service(s) to perform
desired actions.
Figure5. APIs are implemented by software development kits (SDKs), which in turn
use Grid protocols to interact with network services that provide capabilities to the end
user. Higher level SDKs can provide functionality that is not directly mapped to a
specific protocol, but may combine protocol operations with calls to additional APIs as
well as implement local functionality. Solid lines represent a direct call; dash lines
protocol interactions.
GRID APPLICATIONS
Distributed Supercomputing
High-Throughput Computing
On-Demand Computing
Data-Intensive Computing
Collaborative Computing
There are currently a large number of projects and a diverse range of new
and emerging Grid developmental approaches being pursued. These systems
range from Grid frameworks to application testbeds, and from collaborative
environments to batch submission mechanisms.
The two other emerging Java technologies for Grid and P2P computing
are Jini and JXTA . The Jini architecture exemplifies a network-centric service-
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based approach to computer systems. Jini replaces the notions of peripherals,
devices, and applications with that of network-available services. Jini helps
break down the conventional view of what a computer is, while including new
classes of services that work together in a federated architecture. The ability to
move code from the server to its client is the core difference between the Jini
environment and other distributed systems, such as CORBA and the Distributed
Common Object Model (DCOM).
Smarr observes that Grid computing has serious social consequences and
is going to have as revolutionary an effect as railroads did in the American
Midwest in the early 19th century. Instead of a 30–40 year lead-time to see its
effects, however, its impact is going to be much faster. Smarr concludes by
noting that the effects of Grids are going to change the world so quickly that
mankind will struggle to react and change in the face of the challenges and
issues they present. Therefore, at some stage in the future, our computing needs
will be satisfied in the same pervasive and ubiquitous manner that we use the
electricity power grid. The analogies with the generation and delivery of
electricity are hard to ignore, and the implications are enormous. In fact, the
Grid is analogous to the electricity (power) Grid and the vision is to offer
(almost) dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to resources
irrespective of their location for physical existence and their location for access.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2. www.globus.org
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/