GRID OverviewInternet2 Member Meeting

Spring 2003 Sandra Redman

Information Technology and Systems Centerand

Information Technology Research CenterNational Space Science and Technology Center

256-961-7806sredman@itsc.uah.edu

Sandra.Redman@msfc.nasa.govwww.itsc.uah.edu

What’s a Grid?• Grids are a defined infrastructure to dynamically bring together

distributed and independently managed resources for large-scale problem solving and collaborative environments

Distributed researchers, data sources, storage and computational resources Grids provide a secure and scalable architecture based on standards and next-generation reusable software Grids enable greater science collaboration and productivity through shared resources and distributed computing

The Grid Vision

• Flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources

From “The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations”

• Enable communities (“virtual organizations”) to share geographically distributed resources as they pursue common goals for scientific research, engineering design, education, etc.

No centralized management, but respect for both local and global policies governing what resources can be used for what purposes and by who

High performance High reliability

• Highly scalable, extensible infrastructure with seamless access to services

Why grids?• Users Viewpoint:

– A virtual computer which minimizes time to completion for my application while transparently managing access to inputs and resources

• Programmers Viewpoint: – A toolkit of applications and API’s which provide transparent access to distributed resources

• Administrators Viewpoint: – An environment to monitor, manage and secure access to geographically distributed computers, storage and networks.

How is that accomplished?Middleware!!!Many definitions, but according to http://www.nsf-middleware.org/:

“Middleware is an evolving layer of software services that resides between the network and more traditional applications for managing security, access, and information exchange to:

Let scientists, engineers, and educators transparently use and share distributed resources, such as computers, data, networks, and instruments

Develop effective collaboration and communications tools such as Grid technologies, desktop video, and other advanced services to expedite research and education, and

Develop an architecture and approach that can be extended to the larger set of Internet and network users.”

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Resource Discovery

Uniform Data Access

Events and Monitoring

Encapsulation as Web Services, as Script Based Services, as Java Based Services

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Resource accessand functionality

Resource accessand functionality

Resource accessand functionality

Resource accessand functionality

Resource accessand functionality

UniformComputing

Access

ResourceScheduling

Operational Support

space-based networks optical networks Internet

Identity Credential

Management

Communications

process initiation, event generators and monitors, data servers

Port

als

Resource brokering

Workflow management

--------Fault

management

Authorization--------

Accounting

Data replication and metadata management

--------Grid MPI

--------CORBA, DCOM, …

Portals that are Web Services based, shell scripts,specialized (e.g. high end vis workstations, PDAs) Provided by Bill Johnston of NASA’s ARC/Information Power Grid

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Applications

Visualization--------

Data analysis--------

Data integration--------

Collaboration tools

Encapsulation as Web Services, as Script Based Services, as Java Based Services

Grid Services Application Services

Grid Communication Functions(transport (messages, streams, unreliable and reliable multicast) & security)

Authenticationand

Confidentiality

Security Gateways

Grid Development and Coordination

• GGF (Global Grid Forum) - composed of representatives from 200 organizations and over 30 countries, facilitates and supports the creation and development of global computational grids and is developing standards and best practices for grid technologies and applications

• Middleware and Grid Infrastructure Coordination (MAGIC) -coordinating interagency efforts in grid and middleware. Members include NASA, DOE, NSF, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and DARPA, as well as representatives from industry

• National Middleware Initiative (NMI) - developing and deploying a reusable, expandable set of middleware functions and services that benefit applications in a networked environment

National Middleware Initiative (NMI)

• NMI is developing and deploying a reusable, expandable set of middleware functions and services to benefit collaborative applications in a networked environment.

• Funded by National Science Foundation• Two teams:

The GRIDS (Grid Research Integration Deployment and Support) Center is developing middleware for enabling grid applications.

The EDIT (Enterprise Desktop Integration Technologies) consortium is developing middleware for the enterprise environment.

• The work of these two teams is being integrated, in collaboration with federal agencies, universities, private industry, and standards organizations.

Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)• New framework for creating grid services• Based on web services

Standards to build and use distributed services Service description language: WSDL Service invocation: SOAP Service location: UDDI (not used in OGSA)

• OGSA extends web services with: Requirements for service interfaces such as providing

service data and notifications Service management (creation, destruction, lifetimes) Security

• Standardizing in the Grid Forum Architecture: http://www.ggf.org/ogsa-wg Implementation:

http://www.gridforum.org/5_ARCH/OGSI.htm

Helpful Links

• NSF Middleware program - http://www.nsf-middleware.org

• GRIDS Center - http://www.grids-center.org/

• NMI-EDIT - http://www.nmi-edit.org/

• Global Grid Forum - http://www.gridforum.org/

• Globus - http://www.globus.org/