A peer-to-peer service architecture for the Smart Grid

Short paperThe Smart Grid vision needs to address hard challenges such as interoperability, reliability and scalability before it can become fulfilled. The need to provide full interoperability between current and future energy and non-energy systems and its disparate technologies along with the problem of seamless discovery, configuration, and communication of a large variety of networked devices ranging from the resource constrained sensing devices to the large machines inside a data center requires an agnostic Service Oriented Architecture. Moreover, the sheer scale of the Smart Grid and the criticality of the communication among its subsystems for proper management, demands a scalable and reliable communication framework able to work in an heterogeneous and dynamic environment. In this position paper, we propose a generic framework, based on Web Services for interoperability, and epidemic or gossip based communication protocols for reliability and scalability, that can serve a general management substrate where several Smart Grid problems can be solved. We illustrate the flexibility of the proposed framework by showing how it can be used in two specific scenarios.Important challenges in interoperability, reliability, and scalability need to be addressed before the Smart Grid vision can be fulfilled. The sheer scale of the electric grid and the criticality of the communication among its subsystems for proper management, demands a scalable and reliable communication framework able to work in an heterogeneous and dynamic environment. Moreover, the need to provide full interoperability between diverse current and future energy and non-energy systems, along with seamless discovery and configuration of a large variety of networked devices, ranging from the resource constrained sensing devices to servers in data centers, requires an implementation-agnostic Service Oriented Architecture. In this position paper we propose that this challenge can be addressed with a generic framework that reconciles the reliability and scalability of Peer-to-Peer systems, with the industrial standard interoperability of Web Services. We illustrate the flexibility of the proposed framework by showing how it can be used in two specific scenarios

JXTA-Overlay: a P2P platform for distributed, collaborative, and ubiquitous computing

With the fast growth of the Internet infrastructure and the use of large-scale complex applications in industries, transport, logistics, government, health, and businesses, there is an increasing need to design and deploy multifeatured networking applications. Important features of such applications include the capability to be self-organized, be decentralized, integrate different types of resources (personal computers, laptops, and mobile and sensor devices), and provide global, transparent, and secure access to resources. Moreover, such applications should support not only traditional forms of reliable distributing computing and optimization of resources but also various forms of collaborative activities, such as business, online learning, and social networks in an intelligent and secure environment. In this paper, we present the Juxtapose (JXTA)-Overlay, which is a JXTA-based peer-to-peer (P2P) platform designed with the aim to leverage capabilities of Java, JXTA, and P2P technologies to support distributed and collaborative systems. The platform can be used not only for efficient and reliable distributed computing but also for collaborative activities and ubiquitous computing by integrating in the platform end devices. The design of a user interface as well as security issues are also tackled. We evaluate the proposed system by experimental study and show its usefulness for massive processing computations and e-learning applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Performance Analysis of Publish/Subscribe Systems

The Desktop Grid offers solutions to overcome several challenges and to answer increasingly needs of scientific computing. Its technology consists mainly in exploiting resources, geographically dispersed, to treat complex applications needing big power of calculation and/or important storage capacity. However, as resources number increases, the need for scalability, self-organisation, dynamic reconfigurations, decentralisation and performance becomes more and more essential. Since such properties are exhibited by P2P systems, the convergence of grid computing and P2P computing seems natural. In this context, this paper evaluates the scalability and performance of P2P tools for discovering and registering services. Three protocols are used for this purpose: Bonjour, Avahi and Free-Pastry. We have studied the behaviour of theses protocols related to two criteria: the elapsed time for registrations services and the needed time to discover new services. Our aim is to analyse these results in order to choose the best protocol we can use in order to create a decentralised middleware for desktop grid

A component-based middleware framework for configurable and reconfigurable Grid computing

Significant progress has been made in the design and development of Grid middleware which, in its present form, is founded on Web services technologies. However, we argue that present-day Grid middleware is severely limited in supporting projected next-generation applications which will involve pervasive and heterogeneous networked infrastructures, and advanced services such as collaborative distributed visualization. In this paper we discuss a new Grid middleware framework that features (i) support for advanced network services based on the novel concept of pluggable overlay networks, (ii) an architectural framework for constructing bespoke Grid middleware platforms in terms of 'middleware domains' such as extensible interaction types and resource discovery. We believe that such features will become increasingly essential with the emergence of next-generation e-Science applications. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

GRIDKIT: Pluggable overlay networks for Grid computing

A `second generation' approach to the provision of Grid middleware is now emerging which is built on service-oriented architecture and web services standards and technologies. However, advanced Grid applications have significant demands that are not addressed by present-day web services platforms. As one prime example, current platforms do not support the rich diversity of communication `interaction types' that are demanded by advanced applications (e.g. publish-subscribe, media streaming, peer-to-peer interaction). In the paper we describe the Gridkit middleware which augments the basic service-oriented architecture to address this particular deficiency. We particularly focus on the communications infrastructure support required to support multiple interaction types in a unified, principled and extensible manner-which we present in terms of the novel concept of pluggable overlay networks