(180) Low Fat Grid: A RESTful Grid Service for Non-Programmers

Peer-Refereed Talk

Wednesday, 2007-06-27, 11:20 - 12:00, Arena 7

Jason Brazile - Remote Sensing Labs, University of Zurich (speaker)

Topics

Download the presentation

Abstract

The design and implementation of a RESTful web service providing grid functionality is presented. This web service enables small, geographically disperse groups of non-programmers to voluntarily share their computer resources to work on collective problems. Only three prerequisites must be met: 1) potential compute machines must have a Java runtime environment (JRE) installed and outgoing Internet web access, 2) at least one group member must be able to install a single, standalone machine-independent, unprivileged, perl CGI program on some Internet accessible server, and 3) at least one user must be able to produce an archive file representing a batch of jobs - one directory per job, each containing a command script and relevant input files. The client program acts as a mini web browser: requesting jobs, executing them, then uploading the results using the same file upload mechanism used by web-based email clients. Job scheduling is self-balancing since clients pull jobs rather than the server pushing them - faster clients therefore request and process more jobs than slower clients. A prototype of the system has been used for two scientific applications using spare resources on heterogeneous machines at institutions located in different countries. In one case, the application reproduced work previously performed on super computers. In the other case, distributed/remote execution offered a unique collaboration opportunity by working around IP restrictions - the release-restricted software located at one institution produced output data that could be transferred and further processed at another institution, whose auxiliary data was release-restricted. In addition to its unique ease-of-deployment, performance is shown to be favorable when compared to Condor, the leading distributed processing framework for non-programmers.