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The Web As A Global Computing Platform

The Web As A Global Computing Platform. [Slides from a presentation at the 7 th International Conference on High Performance Computing and Networking Europe. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, April 1999. Associated paper published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 281-290]

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The Web As A Global Computing Platform

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  1. The Web As A Global Computing Platform [Slides from a presentation at the 7th International Conference on High Performance Computing and Networking Europe. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, April 1999. Associated paper published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 281-290] Qusay H. Mahmoud Etisalat College of Engineering Emirates Telecommunications Corp. e-mail: dejavu@acm.org

  2. Outline • Web-based Global Computing • Why Global Computing • Computing using CGI • A Web-based Distributed System • Security Issues • Related Work • Conclusion

  3. Web-based Computing • The Web current computing models include: • Server-side Computing (CGI) • Client-side Computing (Applets) • These are limited computing models • Were initially designed for processing fill-out forms

  4. Why Global Computing? • Think of the Web as Programmable • That is, use the Web as global computers • Computing-intensive applications need: • More computing power • Better performance • A Global compute server built out of sub-components (idle nodes on the Internet) • Use as many idle machines on the Internet as possible

  5. Computing using CGI • Inconvenient: more than one program • Limited I/O: getting input from user • Lack of control

  6. A Web-based System • Compute server with • Dynamic Class Loader • Security Manager • Client (applet, CGI script, stand-alone) • Logging facilities • Searching for compute resources • Broker

  7. Dynamic Class Loader • Modularity: software components are fetched dynamically, if they are needed • The client sends a URL of the program to be run by the compute server • The compute server loads the program dynamically • Client receives results

  8. Security Issues • Loading arbitrary classes over the network is not secure • The compute server’s file system is at risk • Client’s code may perform some malicious actions (e.g. deleting files) • Clients may overload compute server • Compute server may crash

  9. Solution • Compute server runs in a restricted environment (sandbox) • Clients do not have access to compute server’s file system • A security policy is devised and a custom security manager is implemented

  10. Searching for Compute Servers • Search engines are used to locate URLs of homepages • A broker is used to dynamically match clients’ requests

  11. Related Work • ParaWeb: executes parallel program on a variety of heterogeneous hosts • World-Wide Virtual Machine: a collection of CGI to extend Web servers functionality • Legion: workstations connected by LANs. It is not web-based • Globus: enable applications to integrate geographically-distributed computational and information resources

  12. Conclusion • Java is a step-forward towards programmable Web • No language has the Web as its run-time system • So, we need: • New models of programming and computation for global computers

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