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Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing
Volume 63, Issue 5, May 2003, Pages 578-589
Special Issue on Computational Grids
 
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doi:10.1016/S0743-7315(03)00004-2    How to Cite or Link Using DOI (Opens New Window)
Copyright © 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

Necessity is the mother of invention: a simple grid computing system using commodity tools

Daniel S. MyersE-mail The Corresponding Author, a, b and Michael P. CummingsCorresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, b

a Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Pomona College, Claremont, CA 91711-7004, USA b The Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1015, USA

Received 8 April 2001; 
revised 8 November 2001; 
accepted 8 November 2002. ;
Available online 19 March 2003.

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Abstract

Access to sufficient resources is a barrier to scientific progress for many researchers facing large computational problems. Gaining access to large-scale resources (i.e., university-wide or federally supported computer centers) can be difficult, given their limited availability, particular architectures, and request/review/approval cycles. Simultaneously, researchers often find themselves with access to workstations and older clusters overlooked by their owners in favor of newer hardware. Software to tie these resources into a coherent Grid, however, has been problematic. Here, we describe our experiences building a Grid computing system to conduct a large-scale simulation study using “borrowed” computing resources distributed over a wide area. Using standard software components, we have produced a Grid computing system capable of coupling several hundred processors spanning multiple continents and administrative domains. We believe that this system fills an important niche between a closely coupled local system and a heavyweight, highly customized wide area system.

Author Keywords: Apache; Distributed computing; Grid computing; HTTP; Java; Linux; Perl; SQL; UNIX; XML-RPC

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. Scientific context
3. Implementation
3.1. System constraints
3.2. General design of the grid system
3.3. System requirements
3.3.1. Operating system
3.3.2. Client
3.3.3. Server
3.3.4. Account
3.4. System processes
3.4.1. user level processes
3.4.2. grid_client processes
3.4.3. project processes: executed once per invocation by grid_client process
3.5. Basic features
3.5.1. Client–server communications
3.5.2. Authentication
3.5.3. Architecture specific binaries
3.5.4. Client-side security
3.5.5. Server-side security
3.5.6. System monitoring
3.5.7. Error handling
4. Performance considerations
5. Future work
5.1. Secure communications
5.2. SQL transaction support
5.3. A little language
5.4. Validity checking
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
Vitae



Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing
Volume 63, Issue 5, May 2003, Pages 578-589
Special Issue on Computational Grids
 
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