Grid and Cloud Computing
Alessandro [email protected]
Sergio Maffioletti Grid Computing Competence Centre - UZH/GC3
© 2010 SWITCH 2
Content
• Motivations• Overview of a Grid Job (in a nutshell)• Cloud computing: Amazon Web Services• Grid Job revised• Project Plan• Conclusions
© 2010 SWITCH 3
Motivations: Main idea: dynamic allocation of resources!
• Grid is presented to end users as a large abstract computing and storage farm with virtually infinite resources
• Simple user interfaces are provided for specific usage of the grid infrastructure
• Resources are allocated upon user’s requests
• Users could be charged based on the effective usage of grid resources
• Applying scenarios:
• At peak time we may use extra cpu time/storage as Virtual Machines obtained from a Cloud.
• Virtual Machines from a Cloud could also be used for jobs with particular characteristics e.g. jobs very demanding in cpu/storage.
Clouds can be local or remote.
Virtual Machines also offer advantages in terms of Management/Deployment.
© 2010 SWITCH 4
Overview of a Grid Job (in a nutshell)
• User code + proxies/auth info + resources specs -> broker/match making -> chosen site gateway -> extra code bit added and submitted to the batch system (typically grid oblivious) -> jobs run on Worker Nodes.
• The batch system reports the info to the grid middleware which further propagates it; various checkpoints actions kick in to safeguard the output back to the user.
• Virtual Machines are needed here but: the User Interface, info system, gateway, batch system as well as Worker Nodes might already be all VMs.
X509 proxy + user job
Information System Batch System
© 2010 SWITCH 5
Cloud computing: Amazon Web Services (AWS)You register and you get access to the “clouds” I.e. US
and/or EU zones
X509 or RSA
NAT
Web Services Interface
Account: Username and password
XEN Virtual Machines
XEN Virtual Machines
Storage (s3)
Storage (s3)
© 2010 SWITCH 6
X509 proxy + user job
Information System
Grid Job revised
The Batch System needs to be able to advertise the Cloud in a dynamic way, start up/stop the virtual machines, Submit/manage jobs, ….Some solutions are available (e.g. OpenNebula) but there is still work to be done.
Batch System
© 2010 SWITCH 7
Project Plan
First part:• Assessment of existing solutions: this step also includes
the definition of the use case requirements • Development of the missing functionalities at the Batch
System level
Second part:• Assessment of the authentication/authorization/accounting
requirements• Development/integration of the necessary AAI
functionalities • Implementation of a billing system
© 2010 SWITCH 8
Conclusions
• Cloud computing and dynamic resource allocation: fills in the hole for a use case not supported by traditional grid computing -> more interaction with cloud computing needed: challenging from the authentication, authorization and accounting point of view.
• Switch and the University of Zurich have expressed interest in submitting the project proposal by March 2010. Any other partners interested?
© 2010 SWITCH 9
Questions/feedback (appreciated:)?
