Special Features:
GLOBUS TOOLKIT 3.0 DELIVERS GRID
STANDARDS
Grid computing takes a major step forward with the first implementation of
emerging standards known as the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA).
The Globus Project issued its alpha release of the Globus Toolkit 3.0
(GT3), a set of open-source software and services whose earlier versions have
transformed the way on-line resources are shared across organizations.
GT3's release, which coincides with the first GlobusWorld conference this
week in San
Diego http://www.globusworld.org is
the result of the past year’s effort toward defining specifications for Grid
services that extend standard Web services. The OGSA-based alpha version
builds on prior releases of the Globus Toolkit, which is central to hundreds
of science and engineering projects on the Grid.
The Globus Project also announced that other leading grid participants are
committing to use of GT3 and OGSA. Companies include Avaki, Cray, Entropia,
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle, Platform Computing, Silicon Graphics Inc, Sun
Microsystems, and Veridian. Research projects include FusionGrid, TeraGrid,
the Department of Energy Science Grid, the Grid Physics Network (GriPhyN), the
Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, the International Virtual Data
Grid Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation Middleware
Initiative.
A collection of quotes about GT3 by these partners is at:
http://www.globus.org/about/news/prGT3quotes03-02-12.html.
"We're enthused about this latest Globus Toolkit release," said Ian Foster,
associate division director for mathematics and computer science at Argonne
National Laboratory (ANL) and professor of computer science at the University
of Chicago. "The grid's promise of seamlessly sharing resources across
distributed organizations takes another major step towards realization with
GT3 and its implementation of the OGSA standards. The array of partners that
we have assembled demonstrates the power of combining open source and open
standards with industrial investment."
Foster is co-leader of the Globus Project with colleagues Carl Kesselman
(professor of computer science at the University of Southern California and
director of the USC Information Sciences Institute’s Center for Grid
Technologies) and Steve Tuecke (lead architect of the ANL Distributed Systems
Laboratory).
GT3 will benefit from an expanding community of developers who are closely
involved in helping to develop Grid standards through the Global Grid Forum
(GGF), a community-based organization with public- and private-sector
contributors.
For example, the UK e-Science program is leading the GGF's OGSA Database
Access and Integration (DAIS) working group to build database capabilities
into OGSA and GT3. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is also contributing
directly to the GT3 code base.
"GT3 provides a major step forward in the functionality provided by the
Globus Toolkit," said Kesselman. "However, of equal importance is that GT3
builds on OGSA, which in turn builds on Web services. By leveraging widely
supported commodity technologies, we can lower the barrier of entry to the
deployment of Grids and the development of Grid technologies. As a
consequence, we expect to see the base of GT3 deployment to extend into new
and important user communities."
The GT3 beta release will be in Spring 2003, with official release in
Summer 2003, Tuecke emphasized. "The term 'alpha' means code that works to the
best of its developers' knowledge, but is not final or bug-free," he said.
"Support for the alpha release will be on a best-effort basis, because the
Globus Project development team will be focused largely on improving the
implementation for future releases."
Development of GT3 is sponsored primarily by the U.S. Department of Energy
through its Office of Science's Mathematical, Information and Computational
Sciences Division, as well as by industry partners IBM and Microsoft
Research.
"Grid technologies are essential to the scientific mission of the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE)," said Ed Oliver, Associate Director for the DOE
Advanced Scientific Computing Research Office (ASCR). "ASCR has long supported
this type of fundamental R&D both to further the study of computer science,
and to add important new capabilities to energy-related research. We are also
gratified by the Grid's broad impact in commercial computing, which is a
secondary but important benefit."
About The Globus Project
The Globus Project conducts research and development to create the
fundamental technologies behind the "Grid," which lets people share computing
power, databases, and other tools securely online across corporate,
institutional, and geographic boundaries without sacrificing local
autonomy.
The project's open source Globus Toolkit includes software services and
libraries for resource monitoring, discovery, and management, plus security
and file management. The toolkit is central to science and engineering
projects that total nearly a half-billion dollars internationally, and it is
the substrate on which leading IT companies are building significant
commercial Grid products.
The Globus Toolkit 2.0 received a 2002 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine,
which further honored the toolkit as 2002's "Most Promising New Technology."
The Globus Project is based at Argonne National Laboratory and the University
of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute.
For more information see: http://www.globus.org
|
