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Abstract for "Grid COmputing" by Dantong Yu (ACF/RCF)

September 18, 2002

Recent advances in computing power, computer network and storage systems make possible the accumulation of huge amounts of data. Leading edge collaborative science experiments such as RHIC, ATLAS and several other LHC experiments are at the point of generating petabytes (10^15) of data annually. This corresponds to the storage volume of several million of today's CD-ROMs. This leads to important technical challenges in data storage, data management, access and processing.

Grid computing has emerged as an important new field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing by its focus on large-scale resource sharing, innovative applications, and, in some cases, high-performance orientation. In this tutorial, we define this new field. First, we review the Grid problem, which we define as flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources what we refer to as virtual organizations. Next, we present an extensible and open Grid architecture, in which protocols, services, application programming interfaces, and software development kits are categorized according to their roles in enabling resource sharing. Finally, we discuss how Grid technologies relate to other contemporary technologies, including enterprise integration, application service provider, storage service provider, and peer-to-peer computing. (The second paragraph refers to Ian Foster's paper).

The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations. I. Foster, C. Kesselman, S. Tuecke. International J. Supercomputer Applications, 15(3), 2001. http://www.globus.org/research/papers/anatomy.pdf