A Case Study On Implementation Of Grid Computing To Academic Institution

A Case Study On Implementation Of Grid Computing To Academic Institution

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  A case studyon Implementation of Grid Computing to Academic Institution. Ahmed Mohammed Al-iesawi MSc. (IT): Faculty of Computer and Mathematic Sciences. UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia [email protected] Mohd Isa Mohd Samat PhD. (IT): Faculty of Computer and Mathematic Sciences UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia [email protected] Abstract – This Paper offers a discussion on how to implement a grid computing environment with planning steps and as such , it covers the basic requirements for setting up a grid computing environment, and present the suitable topology and design to set up an initial grid for research and data processing in academic institutions , and off course not to forget how to maintain and expand the grid. Grid Computing offers this tremendous opportunity to unlock these resources and re-purpose them (and any new resources) into a widely accessible (pool of resources) available to all applications and users. Knowing what a grid is and what it can do for whom uses it is essential when planning to use this technology to tackle the most demanding computational problems. However, when going through the process of implementing a grid computing environment, there are many other issues that arise and that may require special attention. This paper will be a significant guideline for IT mangers as such, it will assist organizations which already having clusters on campus to explore it if they can be shared and linked together. Keywords-component; Grid computing, Strategic Information System planning (SISP) I. INTRODUCTION Today the information system (IS) within an organization should be established on the basis of clearly defined potential benefits (Galliers and Sutherland, 1991) [1]. The above citation seems that the information is considered as key resources to the organizations who want to enhance products and services through more efficient and effective operations and through having better information about the operating environment. Because of this reason, organizations have to make an effort to develop Strategic Information System Plan (SISP) which interrelate with their business strategies and support business missions. (Foster and Kesselman,) [2] Define a computational Grid “as a hardware and software infrastructure that provides dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end computational capabilities.” Grid computing is concerned with coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multi-institutional virtual organizations. The key concept is the ability to negotiate resource-sharing arrangements among a set of participating parties (providers and consumers) and then to use the resulting resource pool for some purpose.” Nowadays, Grid computing is a powerful and efficient computational technology which represented as an advanced step for the previous distributing computing. Along with the high network communication speed and high technical specified machines (PC, Desktops, and super computers.) [3] Most of the interest driven toward the grid concept derives from the fact that, stated as it is, a grid can be regarded as a technology with no boundaries. In fact, if one can integrate all its computing resources, no matter what they are, in a single virtual computing environment, such a system would make possible: • The efficient use of computing resources that differently would remain idle for most of the time. • To perform complex and computing-demanding tasks that off course would require large-scale computing resources. As Web technologies have changed the way that information in shared all over the world, grid computing aims at being the next technological revolution, integrating and making available not only information, but also computing resources such as computing power and data-storage capacity. II. BUILD THE ROADMAP, VISION AND STRATEGY The first step in a journey is determining where you want to go. In grid terms, this means clearly identifying the general theme of the opportunities available through grid technologies. As shown in Figure: (1), a comprehensive vision must address in the next four steps to reach a complete solution, • Infrastructure: Providing the foundation of hardware, software, and grid technologies that work in concert to deliver and support a 978-1-4244-6716-7/10/$26.00(c)2010 IEEE
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  virtualized, grid enabledcomputing environment. • Applications: Identifying the right applications, and determining feasible optimization techniques, that will deliver the scalability, resilience, and flexibility required to deliver business value. • Processes: Optimizing business processes to take advantage of the dramatically reduced cycle times, or increased scope of analysis. • Resultant Strategy: Whether directed as commercially as profitability and cost reduction or Reducing processing time and Improving the response time of data mining applications in research fields. Figure 1: Build the road map and strategy III. BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPLEMENTATION After setting up the road map plan for the projcet this section will analyze the basic requirements that must be satisfied for a grid to be implemented in academic institution. A. Hardware Requirement The grid environment is made up of computing resources. Since there are often hundreds of networked computers, ranging from PCs to supercomputers, which most of the time are not working to capacity or even run idle, A computing resource, which in normal conditions is simply a computer, can be regarded as a source of computing power and data storage capacity. The basic hardware requirements that must be satisfied by any grid implementation are as follows: • Every computing resource must have enough computing power and data storage capacity to properly run the grid platform. • The computing resources do not need to be directly connected to each other. • The resource needs to know some entity that takes it to the grid; an entity could be an internal scheduler, or a data server, and so on. • Computing resources can be indirectly connected, through switches, routers, bridges, hubs, gateways, and wireless connections, by which a data packet can be dispatch from one computing resource to another. B. Software Requirement. Modern grids focus on scalability and adaptability and from this adopt web technologies and standards such as eXtenble Markup Language (XML) or web services during the evolution of grid computing, two basic types of grids have merged: Computational grids and data grids. The first one principally focus on the distribution of computation among computers in a grid, while data grids are tailored towards data intensive applications which handle petabyte sized data in a grid [4]. The following are the basic software requirements that must be satisfied by any grid implementation: • There must be interoperability among grid platforms of all the computing resources. • Network software must be properly configured to allow the direct or indirect communication between any pair of computing resources. In other words, there must be at least one logical path by which two computing resources can exchange data. These are requirements that must be met prior to the installation of a grid platform, but there are some important requirements that must be met by the grid platform itself. To administrate a grid, which is as stated earlier a widely distributed computing environment, the need for comprehensive administration tools is imperative. When choosing a grid platform, the availability of such tools should be carefully checked, as they must provide facilities for: • First installing the platform in a computing resource, this means that the platform should be available through some sort of on-line network, such as the Internet, or through commonly-used storage medias, such as external hard disk, Thumb drive and CD-ROMs. It also means that the installation itself should be straightforward, requiring few and simple steps. • Remotely and automatically upgrading the grid platform and the code for its applications; it is impossible to rely on manual software upgrades
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  when talking aboutdozens of computers (not to say hundreds or thousands). • Remotely monitoring the computing resources; the grid platform must provide real-time information about the state of its computing resources, such as if they are working properly or if they have failed, how efficiently they are executing application tasks, and so on. • Storing logging information about all the activities performed on the platform; historical information about the grid performance is essential when tuning applications. For such, the grid platform should provide a way that developers can analyze this information. • Controlling access to the platform; for obvious reasons, there must be a way to control the access to the platform. • Securing the data exchanged within the platform; application developers will not put their applications to run onto the grid if they are not assured that sensitive data can be secured. Once these requirements are fulfill, the moving to the next level of implementation can be guaranteed. C. Human-Resource Requirements. Besides the high-level administrative tasks, traditionally assigned to a specialized analyst, there are several tasks, such as software installation, that might somehow be performed by non-specialized people. This section as seen in the Figure: (2) presents the required positions and their tasks to be able managing the Grid computing system while it’s establish. • There must be at least one analyst who will be responsible for the higher-level administrative tasks, these tasks include: Upgrading the grid platform, managing applications (installing new applications, starting them up, interrupting, canceling etc) and user accounts. And monitoring the grid and generating reports. • There must be a group of at least two professions who will be responsible for the IT service of the grid environment. And they will divide into two division technical supports and help desk sections their activities comprise: Installing the grid software onto the computing resources or helping people do so. Helping and guiding network administrators to properly configure their environments so that their networked resources can join the grid. Fixing reported failures on the grid Answering technical questions that users and developers may pose and maintaining the grid Web portal • There is one analyst whom recommended being a web developer able to help application developers to develop and test their applications. Eventually, here is an important remark concerning the human factor: The grid software execution should be as transparent as possible when performed on normal desktop computers; users tend to interrupt every running program that they do not recognize as “useful” or that they believe be a source of overhead; two generally good options are screen-savers and system services. Figure 2: The required positions for establish grid computing in academic institution. IV. SETTING UP GRID APPLICATIONS In most of the grid platforms, setting up a grid application should be very straightforward and should not require additional remarks about non-trivial issues. This section will present some basic notes about the setup of grid applications that the grid administrator should be aware of. By this time the grid platform is already successfully installed and checked. A. Deploying an application Grid applications are, in general, single-instruction- multiple-data (SIMD) programs [5]. This derives from the fact that most of the computing-demanding applications have this feature and that, in a loosely coupled distributed system, the data-parallelism tends to be more efficiently exploited. Being so, the deployment of an application has two distinct phases: • Code deployment: This phase is performed when the application is first deployed to the grid or when the code is modified and has to be updated. • Data deployment: This phase has to be performed every time a new execution is issued. Unfortunately, data deployments are more time- consuming, more frequent, and, while they are being performed, the application stands idle waiting for the data to arrive.
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  B. Making applicationdata available Deploying the application data may be performed in several ways. If the application relies on centralized data- base servers, there must be a platform tool or even an application task for attract the data at the server, partitioning it conveniently, and sending the pieces to the grid nodes. This automated process is usually the best option when the grid application is integrated with legacy systems that store their state on databases, but other issues arise when deciding how to spread the application data across the grid. C. Web Publishing Obviously the simplest way to make data available to grid applications is to publish it on the common Web sites of FTP servers. A whole generation of systems and tools to can assist developers to accomplish this task efficiently, but this technique has some major defects. If publishing the data itself is easy, getting it to process may not be; the grid application programmer should be expert enough to deal with network programming to build its application, which is not desired; moreover, depending on how the application is designed, it can suffers from scalability, as every node may try to access the data at once. This happens because the responsibility for distributing the data across the grid relies on the application designer, and not on the grid platform. To total, this might be a good option when establish fast and short-term applications are to be developed, but one should not rely on this type of publishing for long- term and complex applications [6]. V. SYSTEM DESIGN The foundation of a grid solution design is typically built upon an existing infrastructure investment [7]. But at anyway, a grid solution does not come to realize by installing easily software to allocate resources upon request. Because of the adjustable of Grid solutions Grid can solve many business problems, various types of grids are designed to meet specific usage requirements and constraints. Moreover, differing topologies are designed to meet varying Geographical constraints and network connectivity requirements. The success of a grid solution is heavily dependant on the amount of thought the IT architect puts into the solution design [7]. Whenever the significant information and requirement for establish Grid is available, the IT architect has to decide which topology is suitable for his organization or business to implement, if equipped with that, the high level grid design will be easier to complete. In grids it is imperative to starting small and to begin building the basic framework of the design and then think of expand. So it is not advisable to setting out to build the desired end state grid solution all at the beginning. The figure: (3) shows the proposed steps that should be followed when designing grids. A topology view for the proposed Grid can view in the figure: (3), it is divided into three stages, and every stage is cohesive with the other. The simplest of the three topologies is the intraGrid, which is comprised merely of a basic set of Grid services within a single campus. The complexity of the grid design is proportionate to the number of campuses or networks that the grid is designed to support, and the geographical parameters and constraints. IntraGrid is more convinces solution for the proposed grid and as a first step. Figure 3: The proposed IntraGrid, extraGrid, and interGrid for designing the grid system to an organization. The milestone for the initial phase is to provide an intragrid solution, which is essentially a grid sandbox that supports a basic set of Grid services. This solution would support a single location built upon the core grid components, such as a security model, information services, workload management, and the host devices. As long as this model supports the same protocols and standards, this design can be expanded as needed. The design objectives provide a basic framework for building the grid infrastructure. The advantage of using design solution objectives is to start documenting certain areas that can affect the overall design. The proposed design need to make sure that the grid can provide a certain amount of security, availability, and performance. By documenting these different objectives or requirements, it will make the design a lot easier to follow. Also the design will be able to justify some decisions during the course of the design by being able to come back to certain objectives and making sure they were met. ExtraGrid is the second stage of the plan which is to link at the intraGrid and joint the grid, the extraGrid expands on the concept by bringing together two or more intraGrid. And the level of management complexity increases. The primary characteristics of an extraGrid are dispersed security, multiple organizations, and remote/Wireless Area Network (WAN) connectivity. The next and final step is the interGrid which requires the dynamic integration of applications, resources, and
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  services with patterns,customers, and any other authorized organizations whom will obtain access to the grid via the internet/WAN. An interGrid topology is primarily used by engineering firms, life science industries, manufacturers, and by businesses in the financial industry. The primary characteristics of an interGrid include dispersed security, multiple organizations, and remote/WAN connectivity. The data in an interGrid is global public data, and applications must be modified for a global audience. Once the design objectives have been defined, and then can separate them into individual subsystems. This enables for each design objective to be worked on in parallel, while at the same time providing coherence for the overall architecture. Once the documented already have the core subsystems of the design, then can focus on the different requirements that your grid design will comprise. VI. MAINTANING AND UPGRADING GRIDS Once a grid is set up, several tasks have to be performed during its everyday administration. Most of them are similar to those related to any networked system administration, such as user account management, but some of them deserve special attention and are discussed briefly in this section. A. Grid platform administration tasks There are two specific tasks that only grid administrators must perform to maintain a grid: upgrading the platform and adding/removing computing resources. Each one has its issues. a) Upgrading the grid platform software. Upgrading the grid platform is a task that can cause major impact on the normal operation of the grid. While it is being performed, all the activities must be stopped and, as the upgrade may introduce incompatibilities with deployed applications, before choosing a grid platform, the administrators must check if it will be possible to test new releases on restricted environments before applying a new upgrade over all the computing resources. b) Adding/removing computing resources to/from the grid. Upgrading the grid platform is a task that can cause major impact on the normal operation of the grid. While it is being performed, all the activities must be stopped and, as the upgrade may introduce incompatibilities with deployed applications, it is always advisable to wait for all the applications to finish instead of simply pausing them for a while. Therefore, before choosing a grid platform, check if it will be possible to test new releases on restricted environments before applying a new upgrade over all the computing resources. B. Grid application administration tasks Among all the tasks related to the administration of grid applications, upgrading and scheduling executions are those that especially deserve a few comments. a) Upgrading a grid application. Upgrading applications is a task commonly and frequently performed during grid administration, and, in certain situations, it could be delegated to application developers. As with the addition of computing resources, giving developers the ability to deploy and upgrade their applications should be based on what the platform offers in terms of control over an application. As an example, using a grid for denial-of-service attacks can be extremely easy. b) Scheduling application executions. Arranging the way that different applications are executed in a grid by defining their execution order and priority is something that any grid platform should provide to its administrator. Besides the control that the administrator gains over the platform when such functionality is available, experience has shown that when application developers have to submit their executions to queues, they tend to be more careful in testing their code prior to the submission. There are various policies that can be adopted when scheduling applications. The best option depends on the purpose of the grid implementation but, as a general rule, applications should be prioritized according to the significance of their owner. This means that applications themselves do not have a priority, but they inherit their user’s priority. Therefore, if every user has the same rights over the platform, then all the applications should share the same priority; in other respects, if a user has a higher priority over the platform, their applications should have a higher priority as well. VII. PLANNING IMPLMENTION STEPS In order to convert the dream of Grid to reality, the researcher and developer should walk in a constant steps and try to benefit from the existing infrastructure as the universities that already having cluster(s) on campus will explore it and determine if they can be a part of Grid and not to forgot to develop Grid Policies to facilitate and encourage sharing of resources with security guarantee. The process of planning for facility infrastructure and network infrastructure is a continuous one and must be re- evaluated every year as technology changes and as the requirements of the scientific programs evolve or become better understood. By implementing the Grid computing technology the Resources which can be of any information type (computing, storage, networking, etc) can be distributed world-wide and the Access to it is provided in a secure, coordinated, seamless, dynamic and inexpensive way, and then it will achieving At last in today's world a high levels
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  of business performancewhich requires a well-managed technology infrastructure. The above steps will assist Universities which already having clusters on campus to explore it if they can be shared and linked together. Universities are to develop Grid Policies to facilitate and encourage sharing of resources with security guarantee. VIII. CONCLUSION From what reviewing and learning from the preceding paper we can conclude that the Grid computing is a pattern for increasing the computing power and storage capacity of a system and according to hardware and software resources in a network. Grid Computing opens the way to computing as a utility. The user does not care where data resides, or what computer processes particular requests. Comparable to the way utilities work, Grid Computing enables users to request as much information or computation as they want and have it delivered whenever they want. While the Grid computing is now being implemented in the in business organization it its time to establish deploy it in academic institution establishing the Virtual Organization (VO). As mention above while setup the Grid environment, the Grid is heterogeneous and can deploy in different operation system and hardware, that one lead to utilizing from the existing networks within the same campus or between different campuses is encouraged, and it will be an advantage if there is already a High Performance Computer (HPC) to utilize considering it as a backbone for the Grid and Virtual Organization (VO). REFERENCES [1] Galliers, R., Sutherland, A., (1991). Information systems management and strategy formulation: the ‘stages of growth’ model revisited, J. of Information Systems, No.1 p. 89-114. [2] R. Al-Khannak, B. Bitzer. (2007). “Load Balancing for Distributed and Integrated Power Systems using Grid Computing”. ICCEP07, Capri, Italy. Retrieved 23 November 2009, from IEEE database. [3] Foster, Ian and Carl Kesselman ed.: (1999). The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure; Morgan Kaufmann; San Francisco. [4] Hall, B.(2003) New Technology Definitions, retrieved August 28, 2009 from http://www.brandonhall.com/public/glossary/index.htm. [5] Jon Stokes SIMD architectures (March 21, 2000) http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2000/03/simd.ars/ [6] Ferreira, L., et al. (2005). Grid Computing in Research and Education, International Technical Support Organization. USA. [7] Ferreira, L., et al. (2003). Introduction to Grid Computing with Globus, International Technical Support Organization. USA. [8] Chervenak, A., I. Foster, C. Kesselman, C. Salisbury, S. Tuecke. (2001). “The Data Grid: Towards an Architecture for the Distributed Management and Analysis pf Large Scientific Datasets.” J. Network and Computer Applications 23, 2001,pp. 187-200 [9] F. Berman, G. Fox, Hey, T. (2003). Grid Computing: Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York. [10] Cascio, J. (2005). Smart Grids, Grid Computing and the New World of Energy. Retrieved October 4, 2009, from http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002152.html . [11] Berman, F., Fox, G., & Hey, A. (2003).Grid Computing: Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality. Wiley Seires in Communications, Networking & Distributed System. [12] Nataraj Nagaratnam,. et ,al. (2002). Security Architecture for Open Grid Services, Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://www.ggf.org/ogsa-sec-wg. [13] OASIS Standards Organization, http://www.oasis-open.org. [14] Jacob, B., et al. (2005). Introduction to Grid Computing, International Technical Support Organization. USA. [15] R. Al-Khannak, B. Bitzer. (2006) Grid Computing for Power and Automation Systems Implementations. 41ST International UPEC2006, New Castle, September 2006. IEEE.