How can Computer Networks Support National Grid Initiatives?

Tamás MárayPéter Stefán

NIIF/HUNGARNET

Agenda

From individual resources toward integrated grid systems.

Computer network as a special service. Role of NRENs. Hungarian Grids. Layer-2 elements in the grid security architecture. The benefits of layer-3 techniques. ClusterGrid initiative. Conclusions.

From individual resources to the grid Resources used by local users:

compute resources, service resources, special equipment, storage resources, etc.

The goal of grid development: to join them together to improve their usability and to create a single, large (world-wide) service/resource pool.

Computer networks

Computer networking appears in many aspects here: as a connection medium among the different

resources (performance aspect), as a set of extra, “value-added”, mostly

unexploited services (architecture point of view). The role of NRENs is, thus, crucial!

The role of NRENs

Technical level: to provide the connection medium itself.

Organizational level: to provide internal human connection among the NREN and the regional centers/institutions within a country or a region.

Development strategy level: to provide competitive tools for the academic community to improve competitiveness.

The role of NRENs

The role of NRENs

Hungarian grid initiatives

Hungarian grid initiatives can be classified into grid infrastructure and grid system development projects.

Grid principles: To share resources with each other. Is there a

real benefit on this? To provide a bridge between those institutions

that have unexploited resources and those who do not have any but would really need to use them.

The 2-layer grid service provider model.

Grid architecture

Grid architecture

Layered security design from the low-level hardware to the application level.

Why to use computer networking techniques? to improve security, to improve privacy and data protection, to improve transparency in the system, ease of management.

Layer-2 separation

It came from the cluster-grid world where partially dedicated resources are used (PC-labs on Windows at day-time, and on Linux on night-time).

Benefits: 802.1q VLANs on Ethernet. It carries out low-level data flow separation. It prevents DHCP servers to distrurb each other. It aids automated booting from the day-shift to the

night-shift operation (PXE). Limitations/needs:

Secure VLANs, 802.1q support in BIOS PXE.

Layer-3 separation

Why to bother? Grid software – multiport applications. Difficult to protect with ordinary access lists and

firewalls. Difficult to match the grid-requirements againts the

autonomous institutions’ defense strategy. Possible solution: Virtial Private Networks that map

multiport to a single port connection. Encryption-based: OpenVPN, IPSec VPN. Tagging-based: MPLS VPN.

ClusterGrid initiative

It is a pool of 1200 PC nodes throughout the country involving more than 26 clusters.

Supercomputer clusters are planned to be involved too.

A rough measurement on the total compute capacity is about 500 Gflops.

There are 70 users, more than 20 projects, and 100000 jobs executed so far.

ClusterGrid initiative

Fluctuation of grid cluster resources between the day-shift and night-shift operatin.

Blue line – total; Green area – occupied.

ClusterGrid initiative

Authentication and authorization infrastructure: external LDAP service.

PKI infrastructure. One job – one directory mapping format. Web services based resource brokering. Hierarchical monitoring system with integrated

weathermaps.

ClusterGrid initiative

ClusterGrid initiative

Conclusions

The computer network is no longer considered as a large unknown cloud from the grid perspective.

NRENs appear not only on the technical level, but on the organizational level too.

Applications like grid helps revealing network bottlenecks.

There are good experiences in NREN-driven grid initiatives in Hungary.