Henri Bal

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

vrije Universiteit

• DAS-2: homogeneous Computer Science grid+“A grid that works’’+Ideal for clean measurements- Bad for heterogeneous or long-latency experiments

• GridLab: ad-hoc testbed for one EC project+Useful for heterogeneous experiments- Small-scale, unstable

• Grid’5000: large-scale French CS grid+Excellent for large-scale experiments- Bad connectivity to outside world (DAS-2)

Our Grid Adventures onDAS-2, GridLab and Grid'5000

Are experimental Grid platforms useful?

Some DAS-2 (2002-2006) statistics:

• 1 M€ investment (5 Myrinet clusters, 200 nodes)• > 200 users from many universities, 25 Ph.D. theses• Major incentive for VL-e (Virtual Laboratory for

e-Science) initiative 20 M€ government funding- VL-e was major incentive for Big-Grid (~ 30 M€)

• Funding for DAS-3 (Aug. 2006)• Collaboration DAS-3 /SURFnet: 80 Gbs optical network • Collaboration with Grid’5000: towards a European scale

=> DAS has a major impact on Dutch computer science

What is the experimental scope?

• Essential to distinguish between:- Experimental grids for Computer Scientists- Proof of concept environments for application

scientists- Production grids (with massive data storage)

• In plain Dutch: DAS / VL-e PoC / Big-Grid• Computer Science grids are needed to:

- Do clean experiments with reproducible results - Optimize utilization degree- Be able to change everything (OS, network

protocols)

< 20%

Is there room for an international testbed?

• Need large-scale systems- E.g., for research on P2P computing,

algorithms, programming systems, communication protocols, etc.

• There are many collaborations that may boost an international testbed- NL: ASCI school DAS-1, DAS-2, DAS-3- EU: CoreGRID NoE …..