Track 

GT: Grid Technologies

Coordinators

Heinz Stockinger

Description

The Grid Track covers several aspects of Grid computing and provides the ability to get hand-on experience with modern Grid tools. A major part will be dedicated to Grid software that has been produced within the the EU DataGrid project (EDG) and deployed by the LCG and the EGEE projects (all managed by CERN and partners). The Grid projects where CERN is involved aim to deploy a large-scale research infrastructure for Grid computing spanning some ten major sites all over Europe. A testbed has been up and running continuously since the beginning of 2002. Three application domains are using this testbed to explore the potential that Grid computing has for their production environments: Particle physics, Earth observation and Biomedics. The tutorials will present the Grid software architecture and discuss the interplay of basic Grid software (Globus, Condor), higher level EDG middleware, and application software on the EDG testbed. Emphasis will be put on specific middleware issues in job submission and data management, security architecture as well as Grid and web services. In several exercises students will learn how to use Grid tools for their distributed data or computing intensive applications.
This is complemented by two lectures series on specific technologies which are relevant to Grid: "Networking Quality of Service" and "Cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)"

Lectures

Grid Technologies Series

Grid Team

6

GT-GT-L-1

Introduction to the Grid computing and Current Grid Projects
Overview about the Grid Track, it's lectures, Grid computing in general and several Grid projects that develop and deploy Grid software. A general overview about the Grid architecture is given.

GT-GT-L-2
(file 1)
 

GT-GT-L-2
(file 2)

Grid Security and Testbeds
Secure access to Grid resources is a major issue and is one of the first things a user has to deal with when starting to use the Grid, i.e. the Grid testbed or infrastructure. A basic overview about current security solutions is given. Furthermore, CERN based Grid projects deploy large-scale testbeds that spans several sites at various places all over Europe. Definitions are given about what Grid services and resources are available and where they can be used. A detailed overview about the main testbed/infrastructure is given.

GT-GT-L-3

Job Submission / Workload Management
Most of the users of the Grid software interact with the system by submitting their jobs (executable programs) to a Resource Broker which does a matchmaking on available and requested resources and then dispatches jobs to resources in the testbed. This lecture provides background about the work load management software system and details about how job submission is done.

GT-GT-L-4

Data Management
One of the main objectives of a Data Grid is the management of large distributed data stores. This lecture gives an overview about replica and meta data management as well as the software tools provided to deal with data management problems.

GT-GT-L-5

Information Systems
In a Grid environment, there are several hardware and software resources that can be used by end users as well as Grid services and applications. Information systems are used to keep track of resources and also to monitor the current status. Current solutions are presented in detail and how end users can interact with them.

GT-GT-L-6

Applications on the Grid
In CERN based Grid projects, three major application domains are supported: High Energy Physics, Earth Observation and Biomedical Applications. The talk gives a brief overview about these applications and how they use and have used Grid tools.

Grid Services Series

C. Bacon

2 

GT-GS-L-1
GT-GS-L-2

The two lectures on Grid services give an introduction to current Grid and web service technologies provided by the Globus Alliance.

Networking QoS Basics Series

F. Fluckiger

2

GT-NQ-L-1
GT-NQ-L-2

Networking QoS Basics
This series of two lectures is an introduction to Quality of Services (QoS) issues and options in modern networks. Improving QoS guarantees, in particular over the Internet is essential to support GRID services, in particular for applications requiring high transfer rates.
The lecture series will first introduce the reasons for improving QoS as well as a taxonomy of the major technical options. It will then focus on three particular technologies: RSVP, Diffserv and MPLS, describing their respective objectives, strengths and weaknesses, and how they can be combined. The series will move on to a description of the TCP mechanisms and ways of improving their effectiveness. Finally, the series will address the transport of multimedia traffic over the internet, which is required to support distributed collaborative environments.

PKI Infrastructure Series

A. Pace

1

GT-PK-L-1

An introduction to Cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
Still few doubts on what exactly is a certificate and how exactly works certificate-based authentication? This presentation should answer these questions and examine in depth the current technology that is available in a multitude of security areas. It will also include an in depth discussion on the practical challenges in deploying a certificate authority to avoid usual pitfalls. PKI and Kerberos integration will also be briefly addressed.

Hours

11

Exercises

EDG exercises 

Grid Team

6

GT-GT-E-1
GT-GT-E-2
GT-GT-E-3
GT-GT-E-4
GT-GT-E-5
GT-GT-E-6

Hands-on exercise on Job submission
Practical exercises where participants will actively use DataGrid Software for solving Job Submission exercises.

Hands-on exercise on Data Management and Information Services
Practical exercises where participants will actively use DataGrid Software for solving data management and information service exercises

Follow-up of exercises E-1 and E-2

Follow-up of exercises E-3 and E-24

Mini-project

Grid Team

2

GT-MP-E1
GT-MP-E2

In this project students will try to use their specific applications and run them on the EDG DataGrid testbed. More details will be given based on what students have achieved during the school

Wrap up

Grid Team

1

Hours

9

Total hours

20