Replication and update of molecular biology databases in a grid environment

PCSV, présenté par V. Breton, à paraître dans les proceedingsUpdate of molecular biology databases is a growing burden on the biomedical research community. As the grid allows to share and replicate data, we propose a service to automatically update the biology databases from a single changing reference using web services. In this paper we report the components, the architecture and the deployment of the update service on the french RUGBI grid infrastructure. RUGBI is a computing grid infrastructure based on existing middleware and technologies for the community of scientists in bioinformatics

Service Oriented Grid Computing Model as a means of Cost Sharing in the Institutions of Higher Learning in Kenya

The use of distributed systems by enterprises and academic institutions has increased exponentially in recent years, enabled by factors such as ready access to the Internet and the World-Wide Web, the maturity and ubiquity of the HTTP protocol, and the improvement in secure communication technology. In the early days, distributed applications communicated using proprietary protocols, and system administrators used adhoc (improvised) methods to manage systems that might be across town, on another continent, or anywhere in between. Numerous standards have been developed over the years to ease the costs of deployment and maintenance, with varying degrees of success. Today, the key technologies in distributed systems are service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web services, and grid computing, all of which are seeing significant investment in standardization and increasingly rapid adoption by organizations of all types and sizes. Academic organizations in Kenya have seen increase in the number of students admitted as well reduction in central government funding to these institutions to purchase more computer systems and procure management information systems .In this paper we offer a high-level description of each of the technologies, and how they can be used to develop a cost effective co-funded dynamic system that can be used by the institutions. Keywords:service-oriented architecture, Web services, grid computing

Grid Enabled Geospatial Catalogue Web Service

Geospatial Catalogue Web Service is a vital service for sharing and interoperating volumes of distributed heterogeneous geospatial resources, such as data, services, applications, and their replicas over the web. Based on the Grid technology and the Open Geospatial Consortium (0GC) s Catalogue Service - Web Information Model, this paper proposes a new information model for Geospatial Catalogue Web Service, named as GCWS which can securely provides Grid-based publishing, managing and querying geospatial data and services, and the transparent access to the replica data and related services under the Grid environment. This information model integrates the information model of the Grid Replica Location Service (RLS)/Monitoring & Discovery Service (MDS) with the information model of OGC Catalogue Service (CSW), and refers to the geospatial data metadata standards from IS0 19115, FGDC and NASA EOS Core System and service metadata standards from IS0 191 19 to extend itself for expressing geospatial resources. Using GCWS, any valid geospatial user, who belongs to an authorized Virtual Organization (VO), can securely publish and manage geospatial resources, especially query on-demand data in the virtual community and get back it through the data-related services which provide functions such as subsetting, reformatting, reprojection etc. This work facilitates the geospatial resources sharing and interoperating under the Grid environment, and implements geospatial resources Grid enabled and Grid technologies geospatial enabled. It 2!so makes researcher to focus on science, 2nd not cn issues with computing ability, data locztic~, processir,g and management. GCWS also is a key component for workflow-based virtual geospatial data producing

A holistic approach to network security in OGSA-based grid systems

Grid computing technologies facilitate complex scientific collaborations between globally dispersed parties, which make use of heterogeneous technologies and computing systems. However, in recent years the commercial sector has developed a growing interest in Grid technologies. Prominent Grid researchers have predicted Grids will grow into the commercial mainstream, even though its origins were in scientific research. This is much the same way as the Internet started as a vehicle for research collaboration between universities and government institutions, and grew into a technology with large commercial applications. Grids facilitate complex trust relationships between globally dispersed business partners, research groups, and non-profit organizations. Almost any dispersed “virtual organization” willing to share computing resources can make use of Grid technologies. Grid computing facilitates the networking of shared services; the inter-connection of a potentially unlimited number of computing resources within a “Grid” is possible. Grid technologies leverage a range of open standards and technologies to provide interoperability between heterogeneous computing systems. Newer Grids build on key capabilities of Web-Service technologies to provide easy and dynamic publishing and discovery of Grid resources. Due to the inter-organisational nature of Grid systems, there is a need to provide adequate security to Grid users and to Grid resources. This research proposes a framework, using a specific brokered pattern, which addresses several common Grid security challenges, which include: Providing secure and consistent cross-site Authentication and Authorization; Single-sign on capabilities to Grid users; Abstract iii; Underlying platform and runtime security, and; Grid network communications and messaging security. These Grid security challenges can be viewed as comprising two (proposed) logical layers of a Grid. These layers are: a Common Grid Layer (higher level Grid interactions), and a Local Resource Layer (Lower level technology security concerns). This research is concerned with providing a generic and holistic security framework to secure both layers. This research makes extensive use of STRIDE - an acronym for Microsoft approach to addressing security threats - as part of a holistic Grid security framework. STRIDE and key Grid related standards, such as Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA), Web-Service Resource Framework (WS-RF), and the Globus Toolkit are used to formulate the proposed framework

A review on cloud computing adoption: an exploratory analysis

The world has been witnessed with many technological revolutions. One of them is the computing technologies. There have been many revolutions such as mainframe computers, super computers, web technologies, Internet, grid computing, utility computing, etc. Cloud computing is another evolutions in the field of computing and it has been evolved from the earlier computing technologies by the integration of some of them and removing the obstacles encountered in them as a new technology. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, are some of the organizations who provide this technology to organizations and personal users. Cloud computing has attracted many people, researchers, and professionals towards it Many people have done researches on it and many articles and conference papers on varying aspects of cloud computing has been published. The purpose of this is paper is to review those research articles and conference papers to compile the concepts and various aspects of it in order to enlighten the concept more understandable to all varieties of people since it has been a new concept and many people are not aware of it by using exploratory analysis as methodology. The paper focuses on the different definitions of cloud computing, characteristics, underlying technologies, different cloud services, cloud deployment model, advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing, cloud computing implementation issues, adoption status of cloud computing, and future research areas

Towards a Semantic Grid Computing Platform for Disaster Management in Built Environment

Current disaster management procedures rely primarily on heuristics which result in their strategies being very cautious and sub-optimum in terms of saving life, minimising damage and returning the building to its normal function. Also effective disaster management demands decentralized, dynamic, flexible, short term and across domain resource sharing, which is not well supported by existing distributing computing infrastructres. The paper proposes a conceptual framework for emergency management in the built environment, using Semantic Grid as an integrating platform for different technologies. The framework supports a distributed network of specialists in built environment, including structural engineers, building technologists, decision analysts etc. It brings together the necessary technology threads, including the Semantic Web (to provide a framework for shared definitions of terms, resources and relationships), Web Services (to provide dynamic discovery and integration) and Grid Computing (for enhanced computational power, high speed access, collaboration and security control) to support rapid formation of virtual teams for disaster management. The proposed framework also make an extensive use of modelling and simulation (both numerical and using visualisations), data mining (to find resources in legacy data sets) and visualisation. It also include a variety of hardware instruments with access to real time data. Furthermore the whole framework is centred on collaborative working by the virtual team. Although focus of this paper is on disaster management, many aspects of the discussed Grid and Visualisation technologies will be useful for any other forms of collaboration. Conclusions are drawn about the possible future impact on the built environment

The Computing and Data Grid Approach: Infrastructure for Distributed Science Applications

Grid technology has evolved over the past several years to provide the services and infrastructure needed for building ``virtual'' systems and organizations. With this Grid based infrastructure that provides for using and managing widely distributed computing and data resources in the science environment, there is now an opportunity to provide a standard, large-scale, computing, data, instrument, and collaboration environment for science that spans many different projects, institutions, and countries. We argue that Grid technology provides an excellent basis for the creation of the integrated environments that can combine the resources needed to support the large-scale science projects located at multiple laboratories and universities. We also present some science case studies that indicate that a paradigm shift in the process of science will come about as a result of Grids providing transparent and secure access to advanced and integrated information and technologies infrastructure: powerful computing systems, large-scale data archives, scientific instruments, and collaboration tools. These changes will be in the form of Grid based services that can be integrated with the user's work environment, and that enable uniform and highly capable access to these computers, data, and instruments, regardless of the location or exact nature of these resources. These services will integrate transient-use resources like computing systems, scientific instruments, and data caches (e.g., as they are needed to perform a simulation or analyze data from a single experiment); persistent-use resources, such as databases, data catalogues, and archives; and collaborators, whose involvement will continue for the lifetime of a project or longer. While we largely address large-scale science requirements in this paper, Grids, particularly when combined with Web Services, will address a broad spectrum of science scenarios, both large and small scale, as well as various commercial and cultural cyberinfrastructure applications

A service-oriented Grid environment with on-demand QoS support

Grid Computing entstand aus der Vision für eine neuartige Recheninfrastruktur, welche darauf abzielt, Rechenkapazität so einfach wie Elektrizität im Stromnetz (power grid) verfügbar zu machen. Der entsprechende Zugriff auf global verteilte Rechenressourcen versetzt Forscher rund um den Globus in die Lage, neuartige Herausforderungen aus Wissenschaft und Technik in beispiellosem Ausmaß in Angriff zu nehmen. Die rasanten Entwicklungen im Grid Computing begünstigten auch Standardisierungsprozesse in Richtung Harmonisierung durch Service-orientierte Architekturen und die Anwendung kommerzieller Web Services Technologien. In diesem Kontext ist auch die Sicherung von Qualität bzw. entsprechende Vereinbarungen über die Qualität eines Services (QoS) wichtig, da diese vor allem für komplexe Anwendungen aus sensitiven Bereichen, wie der Medizin, unumgänglich sind. Diese Dissertation versucht zur Entwicklung im Grid Computing beizutragen, indem eine Grid Umgebung mit Unterstützung für QoS vorgestellt wird. Die vorgeschlagene Grid Umgebung beinhaltet eine sichere Service-orientierte Infrastruktur, welche auf Web Services Technologien basiert, sowie bedarfsorientiert und automatisiert HPC Anwendungen als Grid Services bereitstellen kann. Die Grid Umgebung zielt auf eine kommerzielle Nutzung ab und unterstützt ein durch den Benutzer initiiertes, fallweises und dynamisches Verhandeln von Serviceverträgen (SLAs). Das Design der QoS Unterstützung ist generisch, jedoch berücksichtigt die Implementierung besonders die Anforderungen von rechenintensiven und zeitkritischen parallelen Anwendungen, bzw. Garantien f¨ur deren Ausführungszeit und Preis. Daher ist die QoS Unterstützung auf Reservierung, anwendungsspezifische Abschätzung und Preisfestsetzung von Ressourcen angewiesen. Eine entsprechende Evaluation demonstriert die Möglichkeiten und das rationale Verhalten der QoS Infrastruktur. Die Grid Infrastruktur und insbesondere die QoS Unterstützung wurde in Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekten der EU eingesetzt, welche verschiedene Anwendungen aus dem medizinischen und bio-medizinischen Bereich als Services zur Verfügung stellen. Die EU Projekte GEMSS und Aneurist befassen sich mit fortschrittlichen HPC Anwendungen und global verteilten Daten aus dem Gesundheitsbereich, welche durch Virtualisierungstechniken als Services angeboten werden. Die Benutzung von Gridtechnologie als Basistechnologie im Gesundheitswesen ermöglicht Forschern und Ärzten die Nutzung von Grid Services in deren Arbeitsumfeld, welche letzten Endes zu einer Verbesserung der medizinischen Versorgung führt.Grid computing emerged as a vision for a new computing infrastructure that aims to make computing resources available as easily as electric power through the power grid. Enabling seamless access to globally distributed IT resources allows dispersed users to tackle large-scale problems in science and engineering in unprecedented ways. The rapid development of Grid computing also encouraged standardization, which led to the adoption of a service-oriented paradigm and an increasing use of commercial Web services technologies. Along these lines, service-level agreements and Quality of Service are essential characteristics of the Grid and specifically mandatory for Grid-enabling complex applications from certain domains such as the health sector. This PhD thesis aims to contribute to the development of Grid technologies by proposing a Grid environment with support for Quality of Service. The proposed environment comprises a secure service-oriented Grid infrastructure based on standard Web services technologies which enables the on-demand provision of native HPC applications as Grid services in an automated way and subject to user-defined QoS constraints. The Grid environment adopts a business-oriented approach and supports a client-driven dynamic negotiation of service-level agreements on a case-by-case basis. Although the design of the QoS support is generic, the implementation emphasizes the specific requirements of compute-intensive and time-critical parallel applications, which necessitate on-demand QoS guarantees such as execution time limits and price constraints. Therefore, the QoS infrastructure relies on advance resource reservation, application-specific resource capacity estimation, and resource pricing. An experimental evaluation demonstrates the capabilities and rational behavior of the QoS infrastructure. The presented Grid infrastructure and in particular the QoS support has been successfully applied and demonstrated in EU projects for various applications from the medical and bio-medical domains. The EU projects GEMSS and Aneurist are concerned with advanced e-health applications and globally distributed data sources, which are virtualized by Grid services. Using Grid technology as enabling technology in the health domain allows medical practitioners and researchers to utilize Grid services in their clinical environment which ultimately results in improved healthcare

a study of undergraduate use of cloud computing applications; special reference to Google docs.

The world has been witnessed with many technological revolutions. One of them is the computing technologies. The world is able to do many things with the utilization of this innovation. There have been many revolutions such as mainframe computers, super computers, web technologies, Internet, grid computing, utility computing, etc even in the computing technologies throughout the history of the world. Cloud computing is another evolutions in the field of computingwhere computingis delivered as hosted services over the Internet and it has been evolved from the earlier computing technologies by the integration of some of them and removing the obstacles encountered in them as a new technology to the world. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, are some of the organizations who provide this technology to organizations and personal users. Google provides a service called Google Docs, a widely used example of cloud computing. Even though many studies have examined the overall concept of cloud computing, no previous research has analyzed students' usage and acceptance of Google Docs in a university setting. The purpose of this paper is to focuses on the factors influencing the use of Google docs as one of the SaaS offering of cloud computing services. The Theory of Planned Behavior was used as the theoretical model for this research in examining what factors influence students to use Google Docs. The interviews (n=20) and surveys (n=316) were deployed to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon. By using hierarchical regression analysis and a correlation matrix to analyze the data, it was found that all three constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior (Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control) are significantly and positively correlated with intention to use Google Docs. Further, it was found that Affect, which measures a person's emotional responses, is also a significant predictor of Behavioral Intention. The findings of this research could be used by multiple stakeholder groups to better understand the factors influencing the usage of Google Docs