Understanding Grid Computing: Sharing Resources and Collaborative Access to Heterogeneous Distributed Systems

1. Grid Basics Adarsh Patil http://www.adarshpatil.com/

2. What is Grid ? • It is a volatile heterogeneous distributed system. • It is all about sharing resources. • It integrates all the heterogeneous resources that are spread across multiple administrative domains (educational institutions, offices, industries) across the world. • It gives transparent/collaborative access to these resources and has distributed Job management system. • It gives a feeling of Desktop supercomputing - means you are sitting in front of your desktop but you are connected to supercomputer. • Grid grows and shrinks dynamically. There is nothing as such you have a static set of resources which we call as Grid. • Cluster is not a Grid. http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm

3. What we mean by Grid Resources? • PCs, Desktops, Workstations, Clusters, Software's • Cluster of Clusters, Clusters of workstations, Piles of PCs • Storage elements • Mainframes, Supercomputers • Visualization Instruments • Collaborative Scientists and end users • Applications (we may note here that resources involved in Grid are heterogeneous. For example : different type of processors Pentium, AMD, PowerPC) http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm

4. Why do we need to build Grid? • To integrate and aggregate affordable(PC,Desktop,Printers) and unaffordable (clusters,supercomputers,mainframes,giant telescope etc) resources • To provide high throughput • To build and harvest collaborative boundaries across various communities in research. • To give the user feeling of using a most powerful computer. • Make fruitful use of the underlying resources and make it as a commodity http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm

5. Difference between Grid and Cluster http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm

6. How can we build a Grid? • This question has answers within itself . With respect to Grid this question means: How do we take part in the Grid? • Or • How do we contribute to the Grid ? • Or • How to we use the Grid? • Grid is a social being. • Grid is analogous to Electricity Grid. Now if you ask How do we build Electricity Grid? • Answers may be • Connect to an existing Grid and use it (as a user) and contribute (as a resource). • Build a grid using the existing resources using Grid toolkits , Core Middleware's, User Level Middleware's. • Getting connected is being part of the Grid. http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm

7. Some Terminology Basics • Middleware = Resource Broker = Resource Manager . • Local Resource Manager - the one which is installed on a standalone PC / Node. • Core Level Middleware - the one which controls Local Resource Managers. • Grid Computing = large scale Distributed Computing • Grid computing superset of Cluster computing, Utility computing, On-demand computing, Metacomputing, P2P computing. • Testbed - it’s an infrastructure built out of commodity or proprietary hardware / software to test your research ideas, experiments and activities. Example: Practice court for playing tennis or squash. • Virtual Organizations: A community of users having common research interests and testbed supporting their interests. For Example: a group of physicists , a group of chemists , a group of doctors, a group of computer scientists. Each of these groups forms a Virtual Organization (VO). • Grid has no standard definition. Everyone has their own definition of Grid. So before jumping into what a person/company says its big into Grid Computing, get to know their definition of Grid. • Please keep in mind the basic of everything remains the same but they change the name and attach new letters/words to it • Well future is “Grid” http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm

8. Credits / Acknowledgements • To all the authors/users/administrators/researchers of the Grid Community • Please mail me if you want to make changes or have any questions • Google and Live are your friends http://www.adarshpatil.com/grid_tutorial.htm