Friday, October 20, 2006

Barry WilkinsonDepartment of Computer Science

University of North Carolina Charlotte

Grid Computing Activities within the Department of Computer Science at UNC-Charlotte

Outline

• Brief description of grid computing

• Activities:

• Supercomputing 2003 conference demonstration• Grid Computing Course (2004- )• Bioinfomatics algorithm hardware accelerator

(participant)• VisualGrid Project (2005- )

“The grid virtualizes heterogeneous geographically disperse resources” from "Introduction to Grid Computing with Globus," IBM Redbooks

Using geographically distributed and interconnected computers together for computing and for resource sharing.

Grid Computing

Need to harness computers

Original driving force behind grid computing the same as behind the early development of networks that became the Internet:

– Connecting computers at distributed sites for high performance computing.

Virtual Organization

Usually, grid computing involves teams working together on a common goal, sharing computing resources and possibly experimental equipment.

Geographically distributed grid computing team called a virtual organization.The resources shared include software and experimental data.Crosses multiple administrative domains.

Applications

Originally e-Science applications– Computational intensive

• Not necessarily one big problem but a problem that has to be solved repeatedly with different parameters.

– Data intensive.– Experimental collaborative projects

Now also e-Business applications to improve business models and practices.

Supercomputing 2003 Demonstration

First personal contact with grid computing (November 2003).

Participant in Supercomputing 2003 demo organized by the University of Melbourne (Raj Buyya).

21 countries, numerous sites.

Subsequent activities

• Projects:

• Grid Computing Course (2004- )• VisualGrid Project (2005- )• Bioinfomatics hardware accelerator

(participant)• SURAGrid participant

Grid Computing Course Taught on North Carolina

Research and Education televideo network that connects all 16 state campuses and also private institutions

Fall 2004: 8 sites Fall 2005: 12 sites Principally an

undergraduate course, (some graduate students)

• Course Home Pagehttp://www.cs.uncc.edu/~abw

/ITCS4010F05

Participating Sites, Fall 2005

Participating UNC campusesPrivate institutions

Wake Tech. Community College

Lenoir Rhyne College

Elon University

Fall 2005 Course grid structure

MCNC

UNC-W UNC-A

NCSUWCU

UNC-CASU

CA

CA

CA

CA

CA

CA

CA

Backup facility, not actually used

Challenges - Technical Issues(grid computing)

Setting up the grid infrastructure – very “challenging”

Providing students with a stable distributed grid computing platform

Moving the students through a set of detailed programming assignments in the face of system and student problems.

Relied heavily on faculty contacts at each site.

Some Publications

• B. Wilkinson and C. Ferner, “Teaching Grid Computing across North Carolina Part II,” IEEE Distributed Systems Online, vol 7, no 7, 2006.

• B. Wilkinson and C. Ferner, “Teaching Grid Computing across North Carolina Part I,” IEEE Distributed Systems Online, vol 7, no 6, 2006.

• M. A. Holliday, B. Wilkinson, and J. Ruff, “Using an End-to-End Demonstration in an Undergraduate Grid Computing Course,” ACMSE 2006: 44th ACM Southeast Conference, March 10-12, 2006, Melbourne, Florida.

• B. Wilkinson, M. Holliday, and C. Ferner, “Experiences in Teaching a Geographically Distributed Undergraduate Grid Computing Course,” Workshop, IEEE Int. Symp. Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid2005), Cardiff, UK, May 9 - 12, 2005.

• B. Wilkinson and M. Holliday, “State-Wide Collaborative Grid Computing Course,” 2005 Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference, March 30, 2005, Raleigh, NC.

• M. A. Holliday, B. Wilkinson, J. House, S. Daoud, and C. Ferner, “A Geographically-Distributed, Assignment-Structured Undergraduate Grid Computing Course,” SIGCSE 2005 Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, St. Louis, Missouri, February 23 - 27, 2005.

National Publicity

Science Grid This WeekFeature story

Gridtoday.com

VisualGrid Project Goal: Collaborative environmental visualization research using

a grid computing infrastructure Started Jan 2006 Involves two sites:

– UNC-Charlotte– UNC-Asheville

plus Environment Protection Agency, Raleigh, NC (funding agency)

EPA

Project Structure (Virtual Organization)

VisualizationCharlotte Visualization Center. Dept. of Computer Science UNC Charlotte

Environmental Modeling• Global Institute for Environmental Energy Systems UNC Charlotte • National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center UNC Asheville

Grid infrastructure Departments of Computer Science UNC Charlotte and UNC-Asheville

• Environmental Protection Agency (funding agency)

UNC-Charlotte Group Leaders

Visualization Charlotte Visualization Center

Bill Ribrasky, Bank of America Endowed Chair of Information Technology (VisualGrid PI)

Aidong Lu, Asst. Professor of Computer Science Environmental Studies Global Inst. of Energy & Environmental

Syst.

Hilary Inyang, Duke Energy Distinguished Professor

Sunyoung Bae, Research Associate

Grid InfrastructureBarry Wilkinson, Professor of Computer Science

Environmental Planning

Inyang, Fisher, and Mbamalu, 2003

Proposed Power Plant location

VisualGrid Infrastructure Group:Goal: To create a geographically distributed set of resources and facilitate collaboration between VisualGrid researchers.

Team:

Barry WilkinsonJeremy Villalobos (MS student)Nikul Suthar (MS Student)Keyur Sheth (MS student)Jasper Land (BS student)

Department of Computer ScienceUNC-Charlotte

Infrastructure Support52-node University Research ClusterChuck Price, Director of University Research ComputingMike Mosley, Senior Systems Developer

Achievements

• Created a secure multi-institutional research grid between UNC-Charlotte and UNC-Asheville with distributed compute and data storage resources.

• Developed VisualGrid portal, a customized web-based interface to access combined VisualGrid resources and execute applications. Single sign-on to all resources. HTTPS server.

• Provided simplified one-step on-line registration for new users.

• Provided a Certificate Authority for authenticating users.

• Developed “portlets” within portal including for the CMAQ application to greatly simplify its use.

Development System(Four 3.4 Ghz dual Xeons)

visualgrid.uncc.eduVisualization

lab data server (4 Tbytes)

Compute resources52-node (104 processor)

University Research Cluster

Software: Globus 4.0, Condor.

CA

CA

Certificate Authority

UNC-Charlotte resources

UNC-Asheville resources

transylvania.tr.cs.unca.edu(8-node system)

VisualGrid ConfigurationVisualGrid portal

National AttentionListed as one of the portals to use OGCE2

X509 certificates are used to provide security in a grid system.

Each user needs a certificate issued by a “certificate authority” (CA).

Grid systems use a so-called user proxy certificates to allow resources to control resources on the user’s behalf.

X509 Certificates

Users certified by a local CA

UNC-C

CA

CA’s with Mutual Trust

UNC-C

CA

UNC-A

CA

GT4

Multiple Grid Nodes

With multiple grid nodes, users need:

Account on each system, and access control set accordingly.

A certificate acceptable by the local certificate authority (i.e. signed by a CA it trusts)

Getting an accountGo to portal and select “register”

New User

VisualGrid on-line registration form

CA/SystemAdministrator

Create accounts, set access control, sign certificate, …

Fill in formProvide password and other information

Email• Request Confirmation• Acknowledgement

Contact other grid resource administrators if users requests account on their resource

UNC-Asheville

Bioinformatics hardware accelerator

52-node UNC-Charlotte university research cluster

UNC-C Dept of CS grid computing development system

4TB Windows 2003 data server reached through coit-grid02.uncc.edu (samba mount)

Sample portlets

Grid Resource Information Portlet

CMAQ portlet, main page

CMAQ settings portlet Tabs for various CMAQ actions

VisualGrid Links

VisualGrid Infrastructure group pagehttp://www.cs.uncc.edu/~abw/VisualGrid/

VisualGrid portalhttp://visualgrid.uncc.edu

VisualGrid Portal User’s Guidehttp://www.cs.uncc.edu/~abw/VisualGrid/PortalInstr.doc

wikihttp://visualgrid.uncc.edu/wiki

Grid-Enabling Bioinformatics Accelerator

Project to develop a grid-enabled hardware accelerator for the Smith-Waterman algorithm

Uses Xilinx FPGA modules

Principal Investigators:– Arun A Ravindran (EE dept)– Arindam Mukherjee (EE dept)

EE PhD student– Kushal Datta

NSF funding for hardware accelerator received.

Publication

R. K. Karanam, A. Ravindran, A. Mukherjee, C. Gibas, B. Wilkinson, “Using FPGA-Based Hybrid Computers for Bioinformatics Applications – Seamless Integration of FPGAs into Grid computing infrastructures is key to the adoption of FPGAs by bioinformaticians,” Xilinx XCell Journal, 3rd quarter, pp. 80–83, 2006.

Collaboration with SURAGrid

Develop and offer Grid course(s) using SURAGrid– Crosses state

boundaries. Integrate

bioinformatics accelerator into SURAGrid (possible)

Acknowledgements

Partial support for the work described here was provided by the National Science Foundation, University of North Carolina Office of the President, and Environmental Protection Agency.

• National Science Foundation, “Introducing Grid Computing into the Undergraduate Curricula,” ref. DUE 0410667, PI: A. B. Wilkinson, co-PI’s Mark Holliday and D. Luginbuhl, $100,000, 2004-2006, Additional Funding,” ref. DUE 0533334, PI: B. Wilkinson, $8216, 2005-2006

• University of North Carolina Office of President, “A Consortium to Promote Computational Science and High Performance Computing,” PI: B. Kurtz (Appalachian State University) co-PIs: B. Berg, W. Campbell, W. Hightower, M. Holliday, J. Hollingworth, R. Hull, D-H Hwang, S. Lea, Y. Li, S. V. Providence, D. Powell, R. Shore, S. Suthaharan, R. Tashakkori, and B. Wilkinson, total $650,000, 2004-2006.

• University of North Carolina Office of President, “Fostering Undergraduate Research Partnerships through a Graphical User Environment for the North Carolina Computing Grid,” PI: R. Vetter (UNC-Wilmington), co-PIs: L. Bartolotii, D. R. Berman, R. Boston, J. Brown, C. Ferner, T. Hudson, T. Janicki, N. Martin, M. McClelland, J. Porter, A. Stapleton, and B. Wilkinson, total $557,634, 2004-2006.

• Environmental Protection Agency, “Proposal to Establish the VisualGrid” PI W. Ribarsky, co-PIs S. Bae, B. Wilkinson, H. Inyang, A. Lu, $485,000, 01/02/2006 - 12/31/2006.

Questions?