Grid Definitions & Perspectives January 2005 Mary Fran Yafchak IT Program Coordinator, SURA [email protected]

Grid Definitions & Perspectives January 2005

Mary Fran Yafchak

IT Program Coordinator, SURA

[email protected]

Southeastern Universities Research Association

Some Perspectives on…

• What is a grid?

• Why bother with a grid?

• (Just a few) Examples

• How to use this workshop


What is a Grid?

• Project Grids– Local, regional, national or international – virtual

organization (VO) as the boundary

• Research Grids– Grids to research…Grids! Distributed computing,

virtual machines, how to share, how to scale

• Grid as infrastructure– Departmental -> enterprise/campus -> public?

• The Grid (InternetX?)– So advanced, it’s dull. As exciting as plugging in a

lamp; as necessary as air (?)


Why bother with a Grid?

• Broaden access to unique resources– Increasing number of “expected” users but also

access for “unexpected” users

• Create Grid gestalt– Develop mega-powerful capabilities by combining

the most powerful that we have now– Coordinate less powerful resources to act together

so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

• Recoup “lost” or wasted resources – Use systems during times of typical non-use;

make use of systems that might be discarded


Why bother with a Grid?

Viewed another way:• Greater Access to High Performance

Computing Resources

• Creation of a new High Performance Computing Resource

• Or maybe - not High but simply Higher Performance Computing (revive, reuse)


Some Examples…Mary Fran’s

slides live here.

Disclaimer


Project Grids

• Numerous - BIRN, GriPhyN, iVDGL, LEAD, NEESGrid, PPDG, SCOOP, etc.

• Put succinctly, from caBig http://cabig.nci.nih.gov Voluntary network or grid…to enable the sharing of data and tools…goal is to speed the delivery of innovative approaches for the prevention and treatment of cancer…infrastructure and tools have broad utility outside the cancer community.

• Read more at:– CERN’s Grid Café

http://gridcafe.web.cern.ch/gridcafe/gridprojects/projects.html

– SURA Testbed Catalog of Grid Applicationshttp://art12.gsu.edu:8080/grid_cat/index5.jsp

– Grid Projects & Deployment System(GRIDS Center -> Globus) http://www.gpds.org


Research Grids

• Again, too numerous to list. Examples:– Grids-Center www.grids-center.org – TeraGrid www.teragrid.org

– Opti-Puter www.optiputer.net

– GRID3/OpenScienceGrid www.ivdgl.org/grid2003

– SURA Testbed Grid

www.nsf-middleware.org/testbed/testbed_status.asp#grid

• Share, Scale: Authn/authz (policies & technology), security, reliability, flexibility, performance, scheduling, monitoring, ease of access & use (portals & other interfaces), accounting, sociology


Grids as InfrastructureFrom “that Grid book” Preface, 1st Edition:

The grid will connect multiple regional and national computational grids to create a universal source of computing power.

Maybe modify to…?

The grid will connect multiple local, regional, national and international grids to create a universal source of distributed knowledge discovery and creation.

The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, Edited by Ian Foster & Carl Kesselman, 1st Edition, 1999(Now in its 2nd Edition, 2003)


Grids as Infrastructure

• Can learn something about this from all grids

• Recognize where we place boundaries– Resource boundaries– Type-of-use boundaries– Type-of-user boundaries

• Develop/practice mutually respectful traversal of boundaries


More on Boundaries

Resource Boundaries– Project/Application (target communities)– Enterprise (campus grids a special case?)

• New in GGF: EGR-RG (Enterprise Grid Requirements Research Group) https://forge.gridforum.org/projects/egr-rg

– Existing government & cultural borders• Texas Internet Grid for Research & Education (TIGRE),

http://www.hipcat.net/projects/tigre.php

• CoGrid, http://cogrid.colostate.edu

• SINET - Japan national grid, http://www.sinet.ad.jp

– Similar to local, intra-, inter-, Inter-net?


More on Boundaries

Type-of-Use Boundaries– A Computational Grid? A Data Grid? A Storage

Grid? Visualization Grid? Application Grid?

Reminds me of a time…– A “Web browser” or something more? http://www.sura.org


More on Boundaries



Reminds me of a time…– A “Web browser” or something more? http://www.sura.orgftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu


More on Boundaries



Reminds me of a time…– A “Web browser” or something more? http://www.sura.orgftp://wuarchive.wustl.edutelnet://denver.ipac.caltech.edu


More on Boundaries



Reminds me of a time…– A “Web browser” or something more? http://www.sura.orgftp://wuarchive.wustl.edutelnet://denver.ipac.caltech.edunews://alt.binaries.mac.applications


More on Boundaries



Reminds me of a time…– A “Web browser” or something more? http://www.sura.orgftp://wuarchive.wustl.edutelnet://denver.ipac.caltech.edunews://alt.binaries.mac.applicationsgopher://nysernet.org


More on Boundaries

Type-of-User Boundaries• Researchers• Faculty • Students? E.g., Georgia State University:

– Distributed Muon Detector Project (see NMI Testbed Case study series - handout on literature table)

– Nova Ahmed’s Genome Alignment Application on NMI Testbed Grid (see later presentations)

• Staff? Home users?– Folding@home, SETI@home, ComputeAgainstCancer,

fightAIDS@home, etc.– Initially passive. More active some day? (FuelOil@home…)


On Boundaries in General…• Good news

– Help divide & conquer design and implementation– Can produce results quickly for a target community

• Bad news – Lead to lack of awareness of parallel efforts, common needs– False sense that services can be developed serially

Working in parallel can produce great synergy,bring value from common knowledge &

solutions,speed us more quickly to…

The Grid.


The Grid

• Like the electrical grid? The highway system? The telecommunications system? Land use? Today’s Internet?

• Usage begins & grows - without development or refinement of [possibly key] functionality - once usefulness is apparent

• One thing stands out - We need to work and learn together to grow in the best directions


Again from That Grid Book“We believe that one significant barrier to the

widespread deployment and application of [computational] grids is the lack of a clear vision of how grids are used, what they look like, and the nature of any obstacles to progress.”

[From The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, 1st Edition preface]

Still the case today?

• Not a sign that we will never get done but that significant developments take time.

• Work together to reduce time required and improve the final product.


How to Use This Workshop

• Overviews - Not for the definition but illuminating possible definitions

• Parade of Grids - Highlighting diversity in focus, approach and stages of deployment.

• Focus Studies - Case studies to drill down and compare/contrast to your own

• Ask-A-Grid-Expert - Experts on the panel and experts in the audience – Share!

• Breakouts - Hot topics & more detail - Participate!

• Further Context - Deployment is not in a void. Take note!

Documents

Grid Definitions & Perspectives January 2005 Mary Fran Yafchak IT Program Coordinator, SURA [email protected]