Friday, April 28, 2006

Grid Development Tools for Eclipse

Cross-posted from The Grid Blog


The Grid Development Tools (GDT) feature is a bundle of Eclipse Plugins useful for Service and Application Development in the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment. Apart from using GDT in the Eclipse Workbench interactively we support using Eclips headless, i.e. running the GDT tools as commandline tools, offering the possibility to including them in automated build scripts. The GDT supersedes development of the eclipse plugin and the old command line service generator.

Current version of GDT is 1.0.6. Download and find more information from:
http://ds.informatik.uni-marburg.de/MAGE/gdt/
http://www.eclipse-plugins.info/eclipse/plugin_details.jsp?id=1431

The GDT follows a model driven approach to service development. Developers can choose between different model sources such as annotated java classes or UML2 models of the application they intend to build. We have already defined an ECORE Meta Model for the upper layer platform specific model (UL-PSM) of a grid application. This upper layer model holds all grid specific information about an application (e.g. what services make up the application, what properties and methods are exposed by the services etc.). The meta model of the UL-PSM is an abstraction of grid computing platform, away from concrete target platform implementations such as Globus, MAGE or Unicore. Transformation from the UL-PSM to executable code on a target platform is defined by the Target Platform Mapping Model

Grid Computing people wanted at LMKR

Cross-posted from The Grid Blog


LMKR Pakistan is looking for experienced professionals who've worked with grid
computing technologies with the following expertise:

. Application development using grid middleware
. Thorough understanding of distributed systems and their issues
. Development experience in java and C++
. Must have strong analytical skills

If you are interested, please apply at:
http://www.lmkr.com/careers
http://202.125.154.81/JobApplication.nsf/Information%20Technology?OpenForm

Interesting News Story: Grid Computing Solution developed by Satyam Satyam Computer Services

Cross-posted from The Grid Blog

This morning, I read an interesting news story titled Satyam Computer develops Grid Computing Solution, courtesy Google News.

It mentions that Satyam Computer Services have developed a solution to support Cyber Forensic, but no details. Feel free to add your comments, if you happen to know anything about this.

Hyderabad, April 26 (PTI): Satyam Computer Services Limited has developed a Grid Computing Solution to be deployed at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Thiruvanthapuram.

The revolutionary technology will render support to the Resource Centre for Cyber Forensic (RCCF) at CDAC, B Ramani, Additional Director CDAC said in a release here today.

Ramani further said that this technology changed "our thinking about what can be achieved. With access to the kind of power the Grid provides, we can unshackle the constraints we were previously bound to and begin thinking of new and innovative ways to approach cyber-forensics".

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) Ratified as OASIS Standard

Cross-posted from The Grid Blog

According to Business Wire news story dated April 24, 2006, The OASIS international standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) version 1.2 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. WSRF provides a generic, open framework for modeling and accessing stateful resources using Web services. The WSRF OASIS Standard comprises a set of royalty-free, interoperable, and modular specifications that make it easier both to define and implement a Web service and to integrate and manage multiple services.A Web service is characterized by the messages that flow to and from it. Any resource manipulated by the service, such as a shopping cart at an online retail site, needs to be identified and described by the messages that are exchanged.

"WSRF solves the problem of how stateful resources can be represented and managed using Web service technologies," explained Ian Robinson of IBM, co-chair of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee. "In particular, WSRF addresses the requirements of the Web Services for Distributed Management (WSDM) OASIS Standard and other industry standards to expose
and operate on fragments of a resource's state, which is essential in resource-constrained or low-bandwidth environments."

David Snelling of Fujitsu, co-chair of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee, added, "The WSRF OASIS Standard provides a platform for many higher level WS Service applications including, but not limited to, management and Grid Computing infrastructures. Using WSRF, companies can provide a standardized, interoperable platform for resource-based Web services."

WSRF is already experiencing a high degree of acceptance in the marketplace, including the open source community. "We already have thousands of people coding to the Globus implementation of WSRF," said Dr. Ian Foster, director of the Computation Institute at Argonne
National Laboratory and University of Chicago, and a leader in the Globus Alliance, developers of the Globus open source implementation of WSRF. "The finalization of WSRF as an OASIS Standard will help accelerate adoption for interoperable distributed systems."

"The WSRF OASIS Standard was developed to help simplify Web Services and make them more flexible. Together, WSRF and Web Services Notification (WSN), which is also advanced at OASIS, are enabling a closer connection between the Grid services and Web services communities," noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "We congratulate the members of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee-as well as those who participated in the
public review and who have already implemented WSRF--for all their work in advancing WSRF as an OASIS Standard."

The OASIS WSRF Technical Committee remains open to new participation. All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing WSRF via the wsrf-dev mailing list
(http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/). As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee's work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard.

OASIS WSRF Technical Committee
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/wsrf/
WSRF Primer
http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsrf/wsrf-primer-1.2-primer-cd-01.pdf

See the Business Wire Story

Cluster Interconnects: The Whole Shebang

Cross-posted from The Grid Blog

ClusterMonkey has a nice introductory article on Cluster Interconnects with a focus on interconnects that aren't tied to vendor specific node hardware.
An often asked question from both "clusters newbies" and experienced cluster users is, "what kind of interconnects are available?" The question is important for two reasons. First, the price of interconnects can range from as little as $32 per node to as much as $3,500 per node, yet the choice of an interconnect can have a huge impact on the performance of the codes and the scalability of the codes. And second, many users are not aware of all the possibilities. People new to clusters may not know of the interconnection options and, sometimes, experienced people choose an interconnect and become fixated on it, ignoring all of the alternatives. The interconnect is an important choice and ultimately the choice depends upon on your code, requirements, and budget.
Complete article: Cluster Interconnects: The Whole Shebang

The interconnects examined are:
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • Gigabit Ethernet with Level 5 NICs
  • 10 Gigabit Ethernet
  • Infiniband
  • Infinipath
  • Myrinet
  • QsNet (Quadrics)
  • SCI (Dolphin)
The article also examines various performance improvement methods and alternatives such as GAMMA, Scali MPI, etc. The review concludes with two tables summarizing key features and pricing for various size clusters.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Grid Brokers and Metaschedulers Market Overview by GridwiseTech

Cross-posted from The Grid Blog

GridwiseTech have an overview of the Grid brokers and metaschedulers currently available on the market. A good roundup for anyone looking for such solutions.

Executive Summary

The report has been written from a vendor-independent perspective. Following the policy of GridwiseTech, we offer fully unbiased evaluation of the researched metaschedulers. The report does not rate the discussed solutions against one another, and the order of their presentation is entirely unrelated to their respective quality.

We are pleased to offer commentary on the following solutions:

  • CSF and Platform CSF Plus
  • Grid Service Broker
  • GridWay
  • Moab Grid Scheduler (aka Silver)
  • EGEE Workload Manager Service (WMS)
  • Nimrod/G and Axceleon EnFuzion
  • MP Synergy
  • Condor-G
Download the report from: http://www.gridwisetech.com/component/option,com_docman
/task,cat_view/gid,20/Itemid,51/lang,en/
http://www.gridwisetech.com/content/view/110/88/lang,en/

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Final Call for Papers: 19th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems

Crossposted from The Grid Blog

September 20-22, 2006, Hilton San Francisco, Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, California USA
Sponsored by the International Society for Computers and Their Applications (ISCA)

See the final Call for papers

Topics include, but not limited to, the following research areas:
1. Parallel Architectures and Systems
2. Parallel and Distributed Algorithms
3. Parallel and Distributed Systems Software
4. Parallel and Distributed Applications

Important Dates
Paper Submission Deadline: April 30, 2006
Notification of Acceptance: May 19, 2006
Registration and Camera-ready Manuscripts Due: June 9, 2006Submission Procedures:
A full paper (not to exceed 15 double-spaced pages), including title, author's name(s), affiliation, mailing address, telephone, fax and e-mail of the principal author should reach the Program Chair on or before April 30, 2006. Papers will be accepted only by electronic submission (PDF format only) to: gdp@utk.edu Please use 'PDCS-2006 Submission' in the subject line of your email. The submitted manuscript should closely reflect the final paper as it will appear in the Proceedings, which will be a maximum of 6 pages (+2 pages with additional page charges) in ISCA double-column format. See: http://www.isca-hq.org/sample-isca-manuscript-format.pdf

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Grid Blog: Call for Particiation CCGrid 2006

This Blog has merged with The Grid Blog. Articles will be cross posted to this blog till the end of this month. Please update your bookmarks / feed urls.

The Grid Blog: Call for Particiation CCGrid 2006

6th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid
CCGrid 2006
16-19 May 2006
SMU Campus, Singapore

CCGrid 2006 (http://pdcc.ntu.edu.sg/ccgrid2006) will be held jointly with GridAsia 2006

Scope

CCGrid 2006 is the sixth in a series of successful international conferences and for the first time will take place in the heart of South-East Asia - Singapore. The conference will be held at Singapore Management University in the centre of Singapore. The past years have seen tremendous challenges with the convergence of Web Services and Grid Technology. There have been major initiatives - internationally as well as locally - within the community that has taken up these challenges. Grid Technology enables us tmake a major change in the paradigm for conducting our work with the holy grail of "computing on tap", which in particular includes collaborative sharing. With this in mind CCGrid 2006 provides researchers and practitioners with an excellent opportunity tshare their research and experience at the cross-roads of Grid Technology. The areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Web Services Flow Languages

  • Programming Models, Tools & Environments

  • Peer-to-Peer computing

  • Information Services

  • Resource Exchange Architectures

  • Grid-based Problem Solving Environments

  • Scientific, Engineering and Commercial Grid Applications

  • Middleware for Clusters and Grids

  • Parallel File Systems & Wide Area File Systems

  • Scheduling and Load Balancing

  • Performance Evaluation and Modelling

  • Resource Management and Scheduling

  • Computational Data and Information Grid

  • Architectures and Systems

  • Grid Economies and Service Architectures

Programme

CCGrid2006 will be held in conjunction with GridAsia2006 in Singapore Management University (SMU) Campus (http://www.ngp.org.sg/gridasia/2006/venue.html).

The conference will contain:

Registration Dates

Advanced Registration: 15 April 2006 (Registration Site)

Accomodation

Special rates have been arranged for GridAsia2006/CCGrid2006 delegates for the following hotels: Grand Plaza Parkroyal, Rendzvous Hotel Singapore, and Carlton Hotel Singapore. http://pdcc.ntu.edu.sg/ccgrid2006/conf.htm

Sunday, April 09, 2006

The Grid Blog: The Emergence of Grid and Service-Oriented IT: An Industry Vision for Business Success

This Blog has merged with The Grid Blog. Articles will be cross posted to this blog till the end of this month. Please update your bookmarks / feed urls.

The Grid Blog: The Emergence of Grid and Service-Oriented IT: An Industry Vision for Business Success

Title: The Emergence of Grid and Service-Oriented IT: An Industry Vision for Business Success
Authors / Editors: No Information Avaiable
Publisher: Tabor Communications Inc.
Buy from Amazon: Not Avaiable
Also avaiable at: http://www.taborcommunications.com/publications/
Review: Book is not avaiable at the moment, so the review provided by the Publisher is given below:
"The unprecedented globalization of modern business demands the virtualization of IT. Organizations worldwide are racing to embrace the enterprise of the future, and the emergence of Grid and SOA are key to realizing this vision and accomplishing the virtualization of IT in an efficient and effective manner. This book is about the vision, the challenges, the lessons learned, and the future. This book is a guide for those architecting the next generation of enterprise IT." - Wolfgang Gentzsch, Coordinator, D-Grid
Sample Chapter: Not Avaiable
Comments: Intel was the main sponsor of the book while the book was first anounce in November last year when call for participation was launched. The publisher's site also says that the collaborators and sponsors of the publication include premier sponsor Intel Corporation; premier analyst sponsor The 451 Group; platinum sponsors BEA Systems, Capgemini, Dell, IBM, SAP, SUN Microsystems; gold sponsors DataSynapse, HP and Platform Computing; and silver sponsors Gemstone Systems and Penguin Computing.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

The Grid Blog: Intel, Red Hat Hook Up For Virtualization, Grid Computing

This Blog has merged with The Grid Blog. Articles will be cross posted to this blog till the end of this month. Please update your bookmarks / feed urls.

The Grid Blog: Intel, Red Hat Hook Up For Virtualization, Grid Computing
Information week reported in a news article that Red Hat and Intel have launched a global program to accelerate virtualization and enterprise-grid computing.

Read the complete story.


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The Grid Blog: 2006 Summer Grid Workshop

This Blog has merged with The Grid Blog. Articles will be cross posted to this blog till the end of this month. Please update your bookmarks / feed urls.

The Grid Blog: 2006 Summer Grid Workshop

The Summer Grid Workshop, a unique opportunity for graduate and advanced undergraduate students to learn about distributed computing and its application in scientific data analysis, is now accepting applications. The deadline is April 23 to apply for the 2006 session, which will be held June 26-30 on South Padre Island, Texas.

For more information visit the Grid Summer Workshop 2006 website.

The aim of the program will be to give students a basic foundation in distributed computing, and valuable hands-on training in computing techniques. The workshop introduces essential skills that will be needed by students in the natural and applied sciences, engineering, and computer science to conduct and support scientific analysis in the emerging grid computing environment.

The school's Scientific Organizing Committee consists of scientists from GriPhyn, iVDGL, the Grid Center, NCSA, and UTB/TSC. Workshop participants will work with some of the world's leading experts in grid computing, through a blend of lectures, discussions, and hands-on computing exercises completed on large-scale grid hardware and software resources.
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Merger with Grid Blog

I am merging my blog with The Grid Blog of Ahmar Abbas. From now onwards, I will be posting to the grid blog. The archives will remain here for your reference and I will cross-post entries here for about a month.

Hope you people enjoy the collaborative effort and better interface.

URL: http://www.gridblog.com/
RSS Feed: http://www.gridblog.com/index.xml
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