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Grid Computing: Conceptual Flyover For Developers
An anonymous reader writes "This article relates many Grid computing concepts to known quantities for developers, such as object-oriented programming, XML, and Web services. The author offers a reading list of white papers, articles, and books where you can find out more about Grid computing."
As part of a university group that adopted Grid computing about a year ago, the Grid is mostly over-hyped material that isn't ready for prime time. The basic idea (see e.g. Legion) worked more than a decade ago, but what I've seen of today's Grid software is fragile, overcoupled, underdocumented, and doesn't yet deliver on all the promises.
:)
We were taught that the test of research software is whether a full professor (or corporate executive or other obscenely busy person worth >> $100/hour) finds it useful enough that they take time to learn it - the uses I've seen for the Grid don't pass that threshold yet.
There are some exceptions: tightly-integrated applications put together in a couple of the hard sciences that really just do supercomputing with a friendlier face. There's enough payoff there for a physicist to be happy with the software.
For a geek, however, even there, most "grid UI research" is simplistic, derivative, and uninspired.
Apologies to my first-ever-advisor who is now a Grid bigwig.
I have had some experience with grids and the overwhelming difficulties I've come across have been in the areas of security.
First and foremost, grids are designed to run in a distributed environment which makes security design and administration that much more complex.
Second, grids are currently in their infancy and there is little prior art to the types of attacks and problems that will affect them. Despite this, they are very juicy targets with the kind of storage and bandwidth that would make even a hard-bitten cracker weep for joy. (i apologise for the imagery)
Third, in my book security has to be a top-down approach - i.e. the guys on top lead the way and then everyone else follows. Grids have no tops or bottoms which makes this a bit tough to apply. In short there is no security hierarchy in a default grid environment. Responsibility HAS to be established explicitly. A simple example is who is responsible for the data held on one of the nodes? Is it the person who wrote the application, the person who owns the application, the person who owns the hardware?
Grids are fascinating in their security requirements (and those who think these are solved by web services have another thing coming! People are a huge aspect of the security of a system, and distributed system like grids have a very complex task of ensuring that people behave the way they should).
Like, if you fit in "grid computing" in your grant proposal, the probability that you'll get funding increases. Now, if in addition to "grid" you manage to fit in "nanotechnology", "bio-informatics" and "paradigm" you'll be funded with a probability very close to 100 %!