Bringing grid computing to the people
Grid computing has changed the way people access and use information. But a team of European researchers has raised the bar by developing middleware - computer software that links software components or applications. The researchers from the KNOWARC ('Grid-enabled know-how sharing technology based on ARC services and open standards') project, which received almost EUR 3 million in funding under the 'Information society technologies' (IST) Thematic area of the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), targeted better and bigger state-of-the-art technology. The advanced middleware enables computers running any operating system to access the distributed computers comprising the grid in a straightforward, cheaper and efficient manner. Thanks to this development, users that are not part of the academic world will have access to resource-sharing technology. 'Grid computing, which allows users to access the computing resources of many different machines distributed around the world, has been invaluable to science,' said Professor Farid Ould-Saada from the Department of Physics at the University of Oslo in Norway, the coordinator of KNOWARC. 'However, much of this business world and the general public have had few ways to use it due to the complexity of installing and configuring grid software, accessing grid networks, obtaining permissions to use resources, etc.' Professor Ould-Saada pointed out that getting access to the grid should be effortless. 'Getting access to the grid should be as simple as installing a new browser to get on the Internet,' he said, adding that 'only then will the survival and expression of the grid be assured'. In order to meet their objective, the KNOWARC project partners improved 'advanced resource connector' (ARC) middleware currently available to users. ARC middleware provides interoperability between computing systems, architectures and platforms. ARC middleware will become the standard installation model for the popular Debian and Fedora distributions of open source operating system Linux, according to the researchers. NORDUGRID, a grid research and development (R&D) venture designed and developed ARC, i.e. the 'free grid', middleware. The EGI_DS (European Grid Initiative Design Study (E) project, which has clinched EUR 2.5 million under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) has picked the software to be included in a sustainable European super-grid infrastructure. 'Providing ARC through Linux distributions was one of the goals of the project, and we also wanted to ensure deployment on proprietary operating systems such as MS Windows and Mac OS,' Professor Ould-Saada said. 'This has always been something of a challenge because in data-driven scientific computing, Linux is the platform of choice, but we've reached the point of full platform independence,' he added. Professor Ould-Saada concluded: 'In a matter of years, I hope to see resources and storage being as easy to access remotely as information is on the Internet today.' KNOWARC partners are from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.