5,174 research outputs found
An Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment for On-Demand Internet Computing
The Internet has evolved into a global and ubiquitous communication medium interconnecting powerful application servers, diverse desktop computers and mobile notebooks. Along with recent developments in computer technology, such as the convergence of computing and communication devices, the way how people use computers and the Internet has changed people´s working habits and has led to new application scenarios. On the one hand, pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and nomadic computing become more and more important since different computing devices like PDAs and notebooks may be used concurrently and alternately, e.g. while the user is on the move. On the other hand, the ubiquitous availability and pervasive interconnection of computing systems have fostered various trends towards the dynamic utilization and spontaneous collaboration of available remote computing resources, which are addressed by approaches like utility computing, grid computing, cloud computing and public computing. From a general point of view, the common objective of this development is the use of Internet applications on demand, i.e. applications that are not installed in advance by a platform administrator but are dynamically deployed and run as they are requested by the application user. The heterogeneous and unmanaged nature of the Internet represents a major challenge for the on demand use of custom Internet applications across heterogeneous hardware platforms, operating systems and network environments. Promising remedies are autonomic computing systems that are supposed to maintain themselves without particular user or application intervention. In this thesis, an Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment (ACOE) is presented that supports On Demand Internet Computing (ODIC), such as dynamic application composition and ad hoc execution migration. The approach is based on an integration middleware called crossware that does not replace existing middleware but operates as a self-managing mediator between diverse application requirements and heterogeneous platform configurations. A Java implementation of the Crossware Development Kit (XDK) is presented, followed by the description of the On Demand Internet Computing System (ODIX). The feasibility of the approach is shown by the implementation of an Internet Application Workbench, an Internet Application Factory and an Internet Peer Federation. They illustrate the use of ODIX to support local, remote and distributed ODIC, respectively. Finally, the suitability of the approach is discussed with respect to the support of ODIC
Digital curation and the cloud
Digital curation involves a wide range of activities, many of which could benefit from cloud
deployment to a greater or lesser extent. These range from infrequent, resource-intensive tasks
which benefit from the ability to rapidly provision resources to day-to-day collaborative activities
which can be facilitated by networked cloud services. Associated benefits are offset by risks
such as loss of data or service level, legal and governance incompatibilities and transfer
bottlenecks. There is considerable variability across both risks and benefits according to the
service and deployment models being adopted and the context in which activities are
performed. Some risks, such as legal liabilities, are mitigated by the use of alternative, e.g.,
private cloud models, but this is typically at the expense of benefits such as resource elasticity
and economies of scale. Infrastructure as a Service model may provide a basis on which more
specialised software services may be provided.
There is considerable work to be done in helping institutions understand the cloud and its
associated costs, risks and benefits, and how these compare to their current working methods,
in order that the most beneficial uses of cloud technologies may be identified. Specific
proposals, echoing recent work coordinated by EPSRC and JISC are the development of
advisory, costing and brokering services to facilitate appropriate cloud deployments, the
exploration of opportunities for certifying or accrediting cloud preservation providers, and
the targeted publicity of outputs from pilot studies to the full range of stakeholders within the
curation lifecycle, including data creators and owners, repositories, institutional IT support
professionals and senior manager
Grid and P2P middleware for scientific computing systems
Grid and P2P systems have achieved a notable success in the domain of scientific and engineering applications, which commonly demand considerable amounts of computational resources. However, Grid and P2P systems remain still difficult to be used by the domain scientists and engineers due to the inherent complexity of the corresponding middleware and the lack of adequate documentation. In this paper we survey recent developments of Grid and P2P middleware in the context of scientific computing systems. The differences on the approaches taken for Grid and P2P middleware as well as the common points of both paradigms are highlighted. In addition, we discuss the corresponding programming models, languages, and applications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
High-Performance Cloud Computing: A View of Scientific Applications
Scientific computing often requires the availability of a massive number of
computers for performing large scale experiments. Traditionally, these needs
have been addressed by using high-performance computing solutions and installed
facilities such as clusters and super computers, which are difficult to setup,
maintain, and operate. Cloud computing provides scientists with a completely
new model of utilizing the computing infrastructure. Compute resources, storage
resources, as well as applications, can be dynamically provisioned (and
integrated within the existing infrastructure) on a pay per use basis. These
resources can be released when they are no more needed. Such services are often
offered within the context of a Service Level Agreement (SLA), which ensure the
desired Quality of Service (QoS). Aneka, an enterprise Cloud computing
solution, harnesses the power of compute resources by relying on private and
public Clouds and delivers to users the desired QoS. Its flexible and service
based infrastructure supports multiple programming paradigms that make Aneka
address a variety of different scenarios: from finance applications to
computational science. As examples of scientific computing in the Cloud, we
present a preliminary case study on using Aneka for the classification of gene
expression data and the execution of fMRI brain imaging workflow.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, conference pape
Checkpointing as a Service in Heterogeneous Cloud Environments
A non-invasive, cloud-agnostic approach is demonstrated for extending
existing cloud platforms to include checkpoint-restart capability. Most cloud
platforms currently rely on each application to provide its own fault
tolerance. A uniform mechanism within the cloud itself serves two purposes: (a)
direct support for long-running jobs, which would otherwise require a custom
fault-tolerant mechanism for each application; and (b) the administrative
capability to manage an over-subscribed cloud by temporarily swapping out jobs
when higher priority jobs arrive. An advantage of this uniform approach is that
it also supports parallel and distributed computations, over both TCP and
InfiniBand, thus allowing traditional HPC applications to take advantage of an
existing cloud infrastructure. Additionally, an integrated health-monitoring
mechanism detects when long-running jobs either fail or incur exceptionally low
performance, perhaps due to resource starvation, and proactively suspends the
job. The cloud-agnostic feature is demonstrated by applying the implementation
to two very different cloud platforms: Snooze and OpenStack. The use of a
cloud-agnostic architecture also enables, for the first time, migration of
applications from one cloud platform to another.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, appears in CCGrid, 201
SLA-Oriented Resource Provisioning for Cloud Computing: Challenges, Architecture, and Solutions
Cloud computing systems promise to offer subscription-oriented,
enterprise-quality computing services to users worldwide. With the increased
demand for delivering services to a large number of users, they need to offer
differentiated services to users and meet their quality expectations. Existing
resource management systems in data centers are yet to support Service Level
Agreement (SLA)-oriented resource allocation, and thus need to be enhanced to
realize cloud computing and utility computing. In addition, no work has been
done to collectively incorporate customer-driven service management,
computational risk management, and autonomic resource management into a
market-based resource management system to target the rapidly changing
enterprise requirements of Cloud computing. This paper presents vision,
challenges, and architectural elements of SLA-oriented resource management. The
proposed architecture supports integration of marketbased provisioning policies
and virtualisation technologies for flexible allocation of resources to
applications. The performance results obtained from our working prototype
system shows the feasibility and effectiveness of SLA-based resource
provisioning in Clouds.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Conference Keynote Paper: 2011 IEEE
International Conference on Cloud and Service Computing (CSC 2011, IEEE
Press, USA), Hong Kong, China, December 12-14, 201
Qualities of Grid Computing that can last for Ages
Grid computing has emerged as an important new field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing based on its abilities on large-scale resource sharing and services. And it will even become more popular because of the benefits it can offer over the traditional supercomputers, and other forms of distributed computing. This paper examines these benefits and also discusses why grid computing will continue toenjoy greater popularity and patronage in many years to come. Finally, we discussed about virtual organization (VO) as one of the key characteristics of Grid computing
Qualities of Grid Computing that can last for Ages
Grid computing has emerged as an important new field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing based on its abilities on large-scale resource sharing and services. And it will even become more popular because of the benefits it can offer over the traditional supercomputers, and other forms of distributed computing. This paper examines these benefits and also discusses why grid computing will continue toenjoy greater popularity and patronage in many years to come. Finally, we discussed about virtual organization (VO) as one of the key characteristics of Grid computing
Complexity Aided Design: the FuturICT Technological Innovation Paradigm
"In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use
the Internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is
already being stitched together. It consists of millions of embedded electronic
measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras,
microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalographs. These will probe
and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways
and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies--even our dreams ....What
will the earth's new skin permit us to feel? How will we use its surges of
sensation? For several years--maybe for a decade--there will be no central
nervous system to manage this vast signaling network. Certainly there will be
no central intelligence...some qualities of self-awareness will emerge once the
Net is sensually enhanced. Sensuality is only one force pushing the Net toward
intelligence". These statements are quoted by an interview by Cherry Murray,
Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of
Physics. It is interesting to outline the timeliness and highly predicting
power of these statements. In particular, we would like to point to the
relevance of the question "What will the earth's new skin permit us to feel?"
to the work we are going to discuss in this paper. There are many additional
compelling questions, as for example: "How can the electronic earth's skin be
made more resilient?"; "How can the earth's electronic skin be improved to
better satisfy the need of our society?";"What can the science of complex
systems contribute to this endeavour?
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