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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JUNE 16, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 24
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Applications:
NATIONAL GRID LINKS
RESEARCHERS
Researchers from four Australian universities have built a prototype grid
computing system that will be used as an on-demand utility for research
nationwide.
The prototype, demonstrated at the Pacific Rim Applications and Grid
Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA) workshop, held on June 5-6 in Melbourne, is
designed to provide a test-bed for research collaboration systems. If the
prototype is successful, the model may be used by the Belle project in Japan,
a large, high-energy physics experiment using data from the particle
accelerator at Tsukuba. The Belle project involves hundreds of scientists from
all over the Asia-Pacific region.
Research fellow Lyle Winton, from the Melbourne University School of
Physics,
said the main objective of the program was to improve management of huge
volumes of data produced by experiments, and to share the data among
participating institutions. The Belle experiment is similar to the CERN
(European Organisation for Nuclear Research) Large Hadron Collider (LHC),
although smaller.
The CERN facility has generated petabytes of data from experiments, and the
Belle project has generated many terabytes.
The data is difficult to manage, and often expensive to distribute.
"We're interested in seeing whether this test-bed is of some use, and maybe
taking it to Belle for use on that project," Mr Winton said. The project is
being being run at four sites: Sydney University, Melbourne University, the
Australian National University in Canberra, and Adelaide University.
IBM last month loaned four Intel-based eServers for use in the project -
one
for each location.
Sun Microsystems has provided machines that will also be used in the
prototype.
IBM has committed to providing the project with technical personnel skilled
in
the open-source grid software system, Globus. After the initial demonstration
of the prototype, the researchers expect to start a gradual roll-out of the
system to the more than 50 institutions involved in the Belle
collaboration.
"By the end of the year we hope to have a large-scale data grid with many
sites throughout the Asia-Pacific region," Mr Winton said.
The prototype has also attracted interested from the GrangeNet project in
Canberra, which is providing skilled staff and additional funds.
The researchers said the build-out of the Belle data grid across regional
institutions would provide a model of a general software and hardware data
grid infrastructure for Australia.
Lessons from developing the prototype application would guide design and
development of the national computational grid that would be set up in the
second phase of the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC)
program, due to start next year, Mr Winton said.
Of interest to commercial users of grid computing is an economic scheduling
model that will drive the prototype.
This will enable researchers at any of the four universities to apply for
grid
services, submitting their deadline and budget, and the software will schedule
their access when it is most cost-efficient.
Mr Winton said high-energy physics research was one of the main drivers of
the
development of grid systems.
Once a project such as this was successful, he said, it could easily be
adapted for other scientific disciplines.
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