An Overview of Grid Computing

WW Grid

What Is Grid ?
A type of parallel and distributed system that enables the sharing, selection, & aggregation of geographically distributed resources:
Computers PCs, workstations, clusters, supercomputers, laptops, notebooks, mobile devices, PDA, etc; Software e.g., ASPs renting expensive special purpose applications on demand; Catalogued data and databases e.g. transparent access to human database; Special devices/instruments e.g., radio telescope SETI@Home searching for life in galaxy. People/collaborators.

depending on their availability, capability, cost, and user QoS requirements for solving large-scale problems/applications

A Typical Grid Computing Environment

Grid Information Service

Grid Resource Broker

R2

R3 RN R6

database

Application R4

R5 Grid Resource Broker

R1

Resource Broker

Grid Information Service

Type of Services Grids Offer



Computational Services CPU cycles



NASA IPG, WWG, TeraGrid, SETI@Home

Data Services
Data replication, management, secure access--LHC Grid/Napster


Application Services
Access to remote software/libraries and license managementNetSolve


Information Services


Extraction and presentation of data with meanining

Knowledge Services
The way knowledge is acquired and manageddata mining.


Classes of Grid Application Drivers



Distributed HPC (Supercomputing):



Computational science. Large scale simulation/chip design & parameter studies. Sharing digital contents among peers (e.g., Napster) Application service provides (ASPs) & Web services. Drug Design, Particle Physics, Stock Prediction... Medical instrumentation & Mission Critical. Collaborative design, Data exploration, education.

High-Capacity/Throughput Computing:


Content Sharing (free or paid)



Remote software access/renting services:



Data-intensive computing:


On-demand, realtime computing:



Collaborative Computing:


Service Oriented Computing (SOC):



Towards economic-based Utility Computing: New paradigm, new applications, new industries, and new business.

Grid Challenges and Technologies

Security Computational Economy Uniform Access System Management

Resource Discovery

Data locality Resource Allocation & Scheduling Network Management

Application Construction

What Grids Need to Provide

Services that enable the execution of a job on a resource in different admistrative domain. Security mechanisms that permit resources to be accessed only by authorized users. App/Data Security (?) A must for commercial users (protecting from GSPs/other users). (New) programming tools that make our applications Grid Ready!. Tools that can translate the requirements of an application/user into the requirements of computers, networks, and storage. Tools that perform resource discovery, trading, selection/allocation, scheduling and distribution of jobs and collects results.


Grid Operations Management Challenges

Entities/Issues
Users, Resources, Owners resources, users, apps Resource Availability/Capability Policies and strategies QoS requirements Cost / Price

Characteristics
Geographically Distributed Heterogeneous Varies with time Heterogeneous & decentralised Heterogeneous Varies: different resources, users, time

challenges

* Resource Management * Application Construction

Size (large number of nodes, providers, consumers) Heterogeneity of resources (PCs, Workstatations, clusters, and supercomputers) Heterogeneity of fabric management systems (single system image OS, queuing systems, etc.) Heterogeneity of fabric management polices Heterogeneity of applications (scientific, engineering, and commerce) Heterogeneity of application requirements (CPU, I/O, memory, and/or network intensive) Heterogeneity in demand patters Geographic distribution and different time zones Differing goals (producers and consumers have different objectives and strategies) Unsecure and Unreliable environment


Sources of Complexity in Resource Management for World Wide Computing

Grid Resource Management Systems Need to Ensure/provide: Site autonomy.



Heterogeneous resources and substrate:

Each resource can be different SMPs, Clusters, Linux, UNIX, Windows, Intel, etc. Resource owners have their own policies or scheduling mechanisms (Codine/Condor).


Extend policies, through resource brokers. Resource allocation/co-allocation Online control - can apps (Graphics) tolerate non-availability of a resource and adapt themselves?


Realizing the Grid

The Grid Architecture

Grid Realization Steps



The integration of individual s/w & h/w components into a combined networked resource (single system image cluster). Low-level middleware to provide a secure and transparent access. User-level middleware to support application development and aggregation of distributed resources. The construction of distributed applications.

Layered Grid Architecture

Applications and Portals Scientific Engineering Collaboration Prob. Solving Env. APPLICATIONS Web enabled Apps Development Environments and Tools Languages/Compilers Libraries Debuggers Monitors USER LEVEL MIDDLEWARE Web tools

Resource Management, Selection, and Aggregation (BROKERS)

Distributed Resources Coupling Services Security Information Data Process Trading

CORE MIDDLEWARE

QoS

SECURITY LAYER

Local Resource Managers Operating Systems Queuing Systems Libraries & App Kernels Internet Protocols

Networked Resources across Organizations Computers Networks Storage Systems Data Sources Scientific Instruments

Resource Management Architecture

Resource Brokers Processing Specification Application Information Service - MDS Resource Co-allocators
Dynamic Aggregation)

Local Resource Mgr Local Resource Mgr

Local Resource Mgr

The Grid Impact!

The global computational grid is expected to drive the economy of the 21st century similar to the electric power grid that drove the economy of the 20th century

Future Grid Scenarios



  

Access to any resources, for anyone, anywhere, anytime, from any platform portal (super) computing . Application access to resources from the wall socket! Many applications provide solutions in realtime. Choice of working: office vs home vs . . . Collaboratories for distributed teams. Monitoring and steering applications through wireless devices (PDAs etc.).

Summary
There are currently a large number of projects and diverse range of emerging Grid developmental approaches being pursued. These range from metacomputing frameworks to application testbeds, and from collaborative environments to batch submission mechanisms


Conclusions
The future HPC will be dominated by a Grid of clusters.


Adaptive, scalable, and easy to use Systems and EndUser applications will be prominent.


Access electricity, internet, entertainment (music, movie,), etc. from the wall socket!


An Economics based Service Oriented Grid Computing computing needed for eventual success of Grids!


The impact of Grid on 21st century economy will be the same as electricity on 20th century economy.


References
Mark Baker, Rajkumar Buyya, and Domenico Laforenza, Grids and Grid Technologies for WideWide-Area Distributed Computing, International Computing Journal of Software: Practice and Experience (SPE), Volume 32, Issue 15, Wiley Press, USA, Nov. 2002.

Globus Toolkit
provide a software infrastructure that enables applications to handle distributed heterogeneous computing resource as a single virtual machine

Globus Toolkit Supports

Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI) GridFTP Globus Resource Allocation Manager (GRAM) Metacomputing Directory Service (MDS-2) Global Access to Secondary Storage (GASS) Data catalogue and replica management Advanced Resource Reservation and Allocation (GARA)