A Grid is not a supercomputer

Amsterdam 20 May 2003 Sara Murphy, HP's Grid Guru, expects that over the next 5-10 years, Grid computing will have an enorumous impact. Grid computing will do for resources what web technology did for infrastructure. She explained this at the special HP Grid Symposium last week in Amsterdam. HP is also trying to figure out how to match its products onto the Grid paradigm. One result is a gateway between its flagship resource management software Utility Data Center (UDC) and Globus. Apart from the public domain sofware, HP is also working with commercial Grid software providers, including GridXpert, GridSystems, Avaki, and Platform.

Why, in Sara's vision, are Grids needed? One of the reasons is to try to make more efficient use of resources by sharing expertise and specialised resources. And then there is the trend towards more geaographically and organisationally dispersed co-operations.

Grid computing is still in its infancy today, Sara noted. There are very few applications that have been enabled to take fully advantage of the Grid. The Grid today is the equivalent of the Arpanet in the 80thies. To really take on, solving security issues is paramount.

Sara stresses the fact that the Grid is not a supercomputer. The latencies are higher, there is not one uniform processor type that is used and they are organisational and are not uniform either.

One of the issues that HP is exploring is how the current software offerings fit the Grid model. One of them is the Utility Data Center (UDC), another OpenView. UDC allows to create a virtual datacentre from many physical resources. It is easy to reconfigure the resources when needed. UDC interfaces to uses VLAN techniques for networking and SAN for storage.

HP developed a UDC - Globus gateway. The gateway transparantly translates Globus resource language to UDC resource language. HP has a special version of Globus available at: http://www.hp.com/products/Globus that has been tested on HP operating systems. HP feeds back errors and corrections to Globus Project.

The company is particpipating in a number of Grid projects. According to Sara this is to learn what the issues are and how large Grids are created. What HP learned to date is that logistics of certificate authority is important, but a cumbersome process. It is also important to partner with organisations and persons outside the field. This gives new ideas and solutions.

Which are the partners and projects in which HP is involved. First there is CERN, of course. Then there is the European project Gridlab, the UK eScience project Gridweaver and the US Teragrid thorugh the Pittsburgh supercomputer centre. Downunder, HP works in GriddLes, the Melbourne University lead effort to try to encapsulate legacy applications sofware into Grid enabled applications. As HP EMEA represenatitve Tim Busch explained, HP is also collaborating with commercial Grid software providers. Although they do not provide "everything" do often have a partially Grid solution that is well tested and well supported. Some of the commercial Grid middleware and -companies that HP works with, is: Unicore, Platform, Avaki, UD, Entropia, GridXpert and Gridsystems. In Europe, HP has a Grid Competence Centre in Annecy, France, that has Globus Toolkit V2, Avaki and Platform Globus running. When available, also Globus Toolkit V3 (the OGSI version) will be running there.

http://www.hp.com/go/grid

Ad Emmen

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