Grid Computing

Grid Computing Colin Enticott Slavisa Garic Tom Peachey Monash University

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Grid Computing • Different types of Grids in Grid Computing – Data Grid – Computational Grid

• Data grid is a grid computing system that deals with the controlled sharing and management of distributed data – Storage Resource Broker (SRB)

• Computational Grid is a Grid Computing system that is concerned with the computation

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Computational Grid • Grid Computing is a computing model that provides the ability to perform higher throughput computing • This is achieved through the use of networked computers – They usually span across many physical locations and organisations

• It creates a Virtual Computing architecture which is what the Computational Grid is – We can distribute process execution across a parallel infrastructure 3

Australian Grid Computing • Australian Grid Research – APAC - Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing – Monash University – QPSF - Queensland Parallel Supercomputing Facility

• Services provided – Computing facilities – Support – Grants

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Grid Middleware • Globus Toolkit – http://www.globus.org

• Storage Resource Broker • Nimrod/G – Nimrod/O

• Cluster Middleware – PBS - Portable Batch System – Condor

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Nimrod/G • Nimrod/G follows what the initial version of Nimrod did and what EnFuzion does. • The main difference is that Nimrod/G makes use of Computational Grid – Provides access to large computing power – Scheduling - where should jobs run – “Economic” scheduler • Cost Optimisation • Time Optimisation

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What we would really like to do ... Can we make it 10% smaller?

We need the answer by 5 o’clock

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Scheduling • Nimrod/G provides a scheduler – Where should jobs run

• “Economic” scheduling heuristics – Costs Optimisation – Time Optimisation

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Robustness • With distributed computing there are issues that single computer/cluster computing didn’t have – Resources go down – You might exhaust your quota on a resource

• Nimrod/G has a robust architecture that deals with grid computing problems – It recovers from resource failure

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Security • Security is another concern that comes with Grid Computing – Data Integrity – Data Security

• Globus Toolkit provides its own security mechanisms – Certificate Authorities (CAs) – Authentication

• Nimrod utilises these mechanism • There may be many different CAs used across one virtual organisation (Computational Grid) – Nimrod/G provides mechanisms for dealing with such situations

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Nimrod Portal

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Case Studies - GAMESS • • • •

SC2003 Demonstration Phoenix, Arizona 17 participants from around the world Up to 300 CPUs at any given time

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Case Studies - GAMESS

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Case Studies - GAMESS

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Case Studies - GAMESS • Smart Drug Docking • Collaboration with University of Zurich – Coupled GAMESS, APBS and Nimrod to experiment with novel docking methods • Nimrod moves ligand • GAMESS and APBS compute potential surface SC04

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Demo • Online demonstration of how Nimrod/G works • Nimrod Portal

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