Grid Computing Proposed Projects

These projects will involve reading background material on the topic including seeking more recent literature on the web and in hardcopy. The result should be a Powerpoint presentation with referenes to any sources used, and a 15 page paper. In addition the survey should involve instaling/implementing an environment/application from the area and demonstarting it. Each presentation is expected to be an 25 minutes long with 5 minutes for discussion.

Up to two students my collaborate on a project, but in that case proportionally more will be expected, normally including the implementation of two tools instead of one. In such a case, the report and presentation may be longer, and the presentation should involve both participants.

Only one individual or group may undertake each project, so pick early.

Possible Topics

• Install and use Eclipse to develop a GT4 application from the Sotomayer tutorial. Conduct a literature search to determine if there are other GT4 enabled development environments, and if so compare them to the Eclipse one. Conduct a brief survey of other tools available to assist in developing, debugging or evaluating the performance of Grid applications.
• Compare Grid portal toolkits, including the first generation ones GridPort 2.0, GPDK (defunct), GridLab and GridSpeed, and the second generation ones JetSpeed, IBM WebSphere Portal, GridSphere, and the Grid Port Toolkit, etc. Identify all those available and document their features, and write an evaluation. In addition, install one or more of the currently active second generation toolkits and write a simple application using it.
• Compare Grid, machine and network resource monitoring tools. Include information on the Grid Monitoring Architecture (GMA), GridRM, GridICE, GPIR, JAMM, R-GMA, CODE, NWS, Ganglia, GridMon etc. Evaluate their functionality and features and determine which are currently active projects. Install one or more of the currently active ones that is suitable for use in a grid environemnt.
• Compare scheduling systems used in Grid environments including Condor, SGE, PBS, LSF. Evaluate their functionality and features and determine which are currently active projects. Install one of the currently active ones that is suitable for use in a grid environemnt.
• Conduct a survey of grid based collaborative environments. Include AccessGrid, Sakai, OGCE, etc, and applications which can be deployed with them. Install one or more environments.
• Compare checkpointing and restart techniques for processes, clusters and grids. In particular, Condor, LAM/MPI. CoCheck, GridCPR, XCAT. Describe their functionality and features, evalaute them, and install one or more Grid suitable ones.

Timelines

• Nov 21 : Last day for indicating topic
• Nov 28 : Brief one page report on progress due
• Dec 7 and 12 : Presentations
• Dec 12 : Final Paper Due