Wanzhang high-rise floor - Talk about grid computing foundations
The generation of grid technology must have the following three basic conditions: calculating the wide area distribution, network technology (especially Internet), and growing demand for resource sharing. In the early stage of the development of calculator technology, there is only a small number of large calculators, which are usually installed in the independent computing center, and multiple calculator users share a larger source through using terminals, but You cannot share the computing resources of multiple mainframes at the same time. With the development of network technology, multiple large calculators can interconnect within the LAN (LAN), and users can use multiple computers through the network. The rapid development and popularization of the Internet makes the production of grid computing technologies. Figure 1 shows the development process of computing resource sharing.
System Components
The grid system can be divided into three basic levels: resource layer, middleware layer and application layer.
The grid resource layer is the hardware foundation that constitutes the grid system, which includes various computing resources, such as supercarriers, valuables, visual equipment, existing applications, etc., these computing resources are connected through the network device. The grid resource layer only implements the computing resource in physical communication, but from logically, these resources are still isolated, and the resource sharing problem is still not resolved. Therefore, the effective sharing of the wide area computing resource must be completed through the grid middleware layer on the basis of the grid resource layer.
The grid middleware layer refers to a series of tools and protocol software. It features the distribution of computing resources in the mask grid resource layer, which provides transparent, consistent use interfaces to the grid application layer. The grid middleware layer is also known as the grid operating system, which requires the user programming interface and the corresponding environment to support the development of grid applications.
The grid application layer is the specific embodiment of user needs. With the support of the grid operating system, grid users can develop a variety of application systems using their tools or environments. Whether to develop an application system on a grid system to solve a variety of large-scale calculation issues is the key to measuring the strength of the grid system. In the past two years, the mesh is calculated in the field of high-performance computing research in the United States. At the same time, the business community has also launched their products, but so far, there are still considerable key technologies to be broken.
Three major challenges
Grid computing should truly enter the practical phase must solve the following three issues:
1. Architecture design
From the first calculator now, the calculator architecture has undergone a series of changes, experienced a large-scale parallel processing system, shared storage type multiprocessor system, cluster system, etc., the commonality of these systems constitutes The resources of the system are relatively concentrated. In contrast, the resource constituting the mesh system is a wide area dispersion, which is no longer limited to a single computer and a small-scale local area network. The final goal of the grid calculation is to form a virtual supercarculator with multiple computers on the Internet. Therefore, the architecture of the grid system is the problem we must solve the first. In short, what components are part of the grid system, the relationship between components and how to work together is a problem that the grid architecture needs to be resolved.
2. Operating system design
With the development of the calculator architecture, the calculator operating system has also experienced a series of development changes, how the overall development trend is more efficient, and uses calculator resources more reasonably. The grid operating system is the manager of the grid system resource. It is managed to be widely distributed, dynamic, heterogeneous resources. Existing operating systems can not satisfy this need.
3. Mode design
Grid Usage Pattern Solved how to use Grid Super Calculator issues. On the existing operating system, the calculator user can use a variety of software tools to complete various tasks. In the grid environment, users may need to utilize grid system resources through a new way. Therefore, design and development of various tools on the grid operating system, the application software is a key issue that needs to be resolved in the grid usage model.
Research status
In foreign countries, the most famous grid computing research is the US Globus project. The main research objectives of the project have two: one is the research of grid technology; its second is the development and standard development of the corresponding software. At the same time, the Globus project also involves the development of grid applications and the establishment of the test bed. Recently, the Globus project proposed a grid architecture model (Figure 2). The grid architecture is mainly divided into the following parts:
● Grid Fabric provides resources related, site-related basic functions, easy to implement high-level distributed grid services;
● Grid Services (Grid Services) implemented resources-independent and application-independent features, and the implementation of grid services involves distribution of geographical and institutions;
● Grid Application Toolkits provides a more specialized service and components for different types of applications;
● Application layer (Application) is composed of an application system developed by users, and grid users can use other levels of interfaces and services to complete the development of grid applications.
my country's research on grid computing is late, and related work begins in 1998. Since the grid calculation is a research that has just started, we have little gap in the research of key technologies in grid, basically in the same starting line. At present, my country's grid computing research is mainly concentrated in research units such as the Calculation Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Defense, Jiangnan Computing, Tsinghua University, etc. have strong strength in high performance calculations. These units have good technical accumulation and strong research capabilities in high performance computing research. Among them, the main achievements in the high performance calculation field of the Chinese Academy of Sciences are the main results of the Dawn 3000 super servers. The main results of other units include the Galaxy Giant Machine, Tongfang Explorer Group System.
From the end of 1999 to early 2001, there were more than a dozen scientific research units within the United Nations in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, jointly undertake the "863" key projects - "National High Performance Computing Environment, referred to as NHPCE" R & D tasks. The goal of the project is to establish a computational network distribution, supporting the computational grid demonstration system for heterogeneity characteristics, which connects my country's 8 high-performance computing centers through the Internet, and conduct unified resource management, information management and users. Management, and on this basis, a number of grid applications that require high performance computing power have been developed, and a series of research results have been obtained.
