CS 6/79995  ST:Grid Computing

Fall 2006

Description: The Grid consists of a hardware and software infrastructure which will connect multiple regional and national computational grids of clusters and supercomputers, creating a universal source of pervasive and dependable computing power that supports dramatically new classes of applications. These computing, storage, software and networking resources are typically owned by different organisations who are willing, sometimes under stringent conditions, to share these resources with a community or ‘virtual organisation’. The federation of these resources to meet the needs of a particular community takes place through a multi-layered ‘Grid Middleware’, which may include cluster resource managers, resource schedulers and graphical problem solving environments. This course is intended as an introduction to computational grids, and the basic services that must be provided by the grid infrastructure, including security, resource management, information services and data management.

The course is timely in that grids have reached a level of maturity where they are being used not just in research but also in industry and commerce. Additionally the software infrastructure is now at a level, where the first comprehensive graduate text on the core technologies had been published (in 2005).

The course will be based on this book together with a collection of articles from books, journals, and conference proceedings, together with material available through the Web.

The course would compliment Cluster Computing and also Parallel and Distributed Programming and represent a third course in a sequence suitable for research in cluster and meta-cluster design, administration and programming.

Prerequisites:

CS 43201 Operating Systems, and, either CS45101 Computer Organization & Architecture or CS45201 Computer Communication Networks, or equivalent; or permission required

CS 6/73995 Parallel and Distributed Computing and Cluster Computing are complementary to this course and would provide a useful background.

Recommended Texts

The Grid - Core Technologies by Maozhen Li, Mark Baker, John Wiley & Sons; 2005, ISBN 0-470-09417-6
Globus Toolkit 4: Programming Java Services by Borja Sotomayor, Lisa Childers ,The Elsevier Series in Grid Computing, Morgan-Kaufmann ; 2005, ISBN 0123694043
Additional Texts:
Grid Computing: Making The Global Infrastructure a Reality by Fran Berman (Editor), Geoffrey Fox (Editor), Anthony J.G. Hey (Editor), John Wiley & Sons; (April 8, 2003), ISBN 047085319
The Grid 2: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman, Morgan Kaufmann Nov 2003, ISBN: 1558609334.

Course Outline:

Topics to be covered include a selection from:

  • Introduction to the Grid
  • Grid Architecture
  • Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA), WSRF and Data Grids
  • Networking Infrastructure, Protocols and Quality of Service.
  • Computing Platforms. Operating Systems and Network Interfaces.
  • The Globus Toolkit: Core systems and related tools such as the Message Passing Interface communication library, the Remote I/O (RIO) library, and the Nimrod parameter study library
  • Security, Accounting and Assurance.
  • Grid Monitoring
  • Instrumentation and Measurement, Performance Analysis and Visualization.
  • Grid Scheduling, Resource Management, Resource Brokers, Resource Reservations.
  • Workflow Management
  • Grid Portal Development
  • Application Case Studies

Assesment:

Assesment will involve homeworks, projects, and presentations, and possble examinations, including a substantial project involving research about, implementation of, deployment of or application development on a grid platform.

Students are expected to have read assigned papers in advance of class and to participate actively in discussions. Students may be required to write summaries of the papers and discussions, and these may form part of the final grade.

Each student (or small group) will be expected to give an in-class presentation on an assigned topic, which will be graded.

Students will also undertake a project which may be a survey of current research in an area of grid computing, or may involve grid research deploying or using software such as Globus, Condor or Legion. Students will be required to write a report on the project and possibly to present it in class.

Additional Requirements:
Students with Disabilities:

University policy 3342-3-18 requires that students with disabilities be provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access to course content. If you have a documented disability and require accommodations, please contact your instructor at the beginning of the semester to make arrangements for necessary classroom adjustments. Please note, you must first verify your eligibility for these adjustments through Student Disability Services (contact 330-672-3391 or visit http://www.registrars.kent.edu/disability/default.htm for more information on registration procedures).