GRIDS Center Newsletter
November 2005
The following news about distributed computing is from the Grid
Research, Integration, Deployment and Support Center (GRIDS), part
of the National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative (NMI).
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Two significant events occurred during the fall of 2005: the
release of NMI-R8, which includes two important new components, and
the successful demonstration of the Biophony Grid Portal, the
culmination of the LTERgrid pilot study, which showed on a high
level how grid middleware can assist long-term ecological studies.
SC'05 participants can see the Biophony Grid Portal in
action at the NCSA booth on Tuesday, November 15 at 11:00 AM.
Features
Grid Computing: A Vision for LTER
Cyberinfrastructure
The LTER Grid Pilot Study, which ran from March 2005 to September 2005,
investigated how grid middleware and high-performance computer
applications could be used to facilitate remote study and collaboration
among ecology and biology researchers all over the world. The study
culminated in the successful demonstration on September 20, 2005 of the
Biophony Grid Portal.
GRIDS Center Tutorial at SC'05
GRIDS Center members, Mike Freemon and David Gehrig of NCSA,
along with Jaime Frey of the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
will present a one-day tutorial, Hands-On: Introduction to Grid
Computing, geared toward novice Grid users at SC'05 this year. The
hands-on, full-day tutorial moves the new Grid user through a guided
series of activities introducing concepts such as the Globus toolkit,
Grid security certificates, reliable file transfer, simple job
management, and workflow management. The tutorial introduces essential
skills that will be needed to conduct and support use of the Grid
computing environment.
NMI Release 8 Now Available
NMI-R8, released October 18, 2005, marks two important "firsts" for the
NMI program: the addition and integration of Ninf-G, the first non-U.S.-developed
component included in the GRIDS Center Software Suite; and GridShib, the
first software enabling interoperability between the Globus® Toolkit
and Shibboleth® federating software.
Articles
Secure Sign-on and Credentials-Based Authentication for the LTER
Grid
A significant challenge in the development of such community grids as
the LTER Grid is finding ways to take advantage of the community's
existing authentication facilities. Members of the GRIDS Center at NCSA
accomplished this by integrating MyProxy with the Pluggable
Authentication Modules interface to enable integration with existing
authentication mechanisms, and by replacing username/password
authentication with credential-based authentication.
WSMetacatService A GT4 Web Service Wrapper for Metacat
The September 20, 2005 LTERgrid Pilot application demonstration also
showed how the connection between a Metacat client and a Metacat server
could be secured using a GSI-enabled https connection and how Metacat
could be Web Service-enabled.
Software Releases
NMI Release 8
Components in R8 include software, online services, directory schema,
conventions and best practices, architecture documents, and policies.
These components have been contributed by three systems integrator teams
funded by NMI: The GRIDS Center, NMI-EDIT, and OGCE.
GridSolve
GridSolve, released August 14 by the Innovative Computing Laboratory of
the University of Tennessee, is a new implementation of the grid
middleware system NetSolve that is based on the emerging standard for
Grid Remote Procedure Call (GridRPC). Features include tolerance for
Network Address Translation (NAT) devices, accelerated performance based
on the Receiver Makes Right (RDR) protocol, support for asynchronous
management of long-running jobs, streamlined development of new
services, easier service deployment, and enhanced resource selection.
News from Around the Grid
Grid
Community Should ‘Flock’ to BoF Sessions at SC’05
Grid
computing will feature prominently at SC’05, particularly in Birds-of-a-Feather
sessions, which include well-known names like Ian Foster, Charlie Catlett,
and others.
Open
Science Grid Technology and Applications Featured at SC’05
The Open
Science Grid, a nationwide community grid built by research groups from United
States universities and national laboratories, will showcase advanced grid
technologies and innovative scientific applications at SC’05. Presentations
and demonstrations at 13 booths will show how scientists from diverse fields
contribute manpower and resources to the OSG and benefit from easy access to
local and remote resources, testing and production environments for middleware
and applications, and a common computing infrastructure. Over 20 member organizations
representing more than 50 institutions and hundreds of researchers contribute
to the OSG and benefit from access to shared resources worldwide, including
over 10,000 CPUs and many terabytes of data storage.
TACC,
UTIG Break ground on New “Home” on J. J. Pickle Research Campus
The
three-story, 94,000-square foot building on the J. J. Pickle Research Campus
will be shared by the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the Jackson School
of Geosciences’ Institute for Geophysics. Specifically, the building
will provide a 6,000-square foot, raised-floor computer machine room that can
be expanded to 12,000 feet. Construction is expected to be complete by fall
2006.
Intel Simplifies
Storage
Intel Corporation has announced a new storage platform, Intel
Storage System SSR212MA, aimed at enabling small- and medium-sized businesses
to build a full-featured Storage Area Network (SAN) based on IP networking
standards as a low-cost complement or alternative to fibre channel-based
solutions. Using a single Intel® Xeon® processor,
the platform supports up to 12 Serial ATA hard drives and iSCSI connectivity,
which allows SANs to be built on existing network IP infrastructure. According
to Intel, the new platform is “designed to make it easier and more affordable
for small- and medium-sized businesses to deploy storage solutions that help
ensure prompt disaster recovery and extend backup capabilities.”
New Connection Links PNNL
to High-Speed Networks
A new connection on a fiber optic cable between Richland and Seattle has been
lit to support the high-speed transfer of very large data sets between researchers
at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and U.S.
and international science communities. The new connection links PNNL to the
Pacific Northwest Gigapop exchange point in Seattle. From there, the lab is
able to join the DOE UltraScience Network as well as other national and international
networks. This light-riding connection advances the ability of PNNL scientists
to collaborate and share information from major research programs in homeland
security, cyber security, information visualization, and human and environmental
health with scientific institutions worldwide.
Centers
Join to Forge e-Science Tools
Three UK centers are joining forces to make Grid middleware, developed under
the UK e-Science Program, available and easy to use by e-researchers in all
disciplines. The e-Science Core Program is investing an extra 3.8 million pounds
over three years to establish the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute-UK
(OMII-UK) by pooling expertise gained on internationally recognized e-Science
projects at the Universities of Edinburgh, Manchester and Southampton.
External Conferences, Workshops,
Events, and Calls for Papers
HiPC 2005 Registration
Now Open
Advance registration is now open for the 2005 International Conference on High-Performance Computing, to be held December 18-21 in Goa, India. The deadline
is November 7.
HPGC 2006 Call For Papers
The
Third High-Performance Grid Computing Workshop will be held April 29, 2006,
in Rhodes, Greece, in conjunction with the International Parallel and Distributed
Processing Symposium (IPDPS’2006, April 25-29, 2006). The
HPGC workshop provides a forum for presenting research results on most aspects
of grid computing, with a focus on performance, in the areas of applications,
benchmarking, infrastructure, management and scheduling, partitioning and load
balancing, and programming models. The deadline for paper submissions is November
18; authors will be notified by December 20. More details are available at
the Web site.
Grid Application
Planning and Implementation Workshop - Early Registration Open
A SURA Cyberinfrastructure Workshop on grid application planning and implementation
will be held December 6-8, 2005 at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the
University of Texas at Austin. The workshop is focused on faculty, researchers,
developers, funding agencies, and planners from universities, research institutions,
and funding agencies interested in the deployment and use of grids and grid
applications. The deadline for early registration at a discounted rate is November
22.
Call
for Contributors: The Emergence of Grid and Service-Oriented IT
Tabor Communications Inc., publisher of GRIDtoday and HPCwire,
is offering participation opportunities for "The Emergence of Grid and
Service-Oriented IT," a high-quality, full-color publication set to be
released in January. For more information on featuring your organization with
a paid participation in this publication, e-mail Anthony May (anthony@taborcommunications.com)
or call (800) 795-4472.
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