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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Special Features:
MCNC-RDI INTROS INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES AT GGF CONFERENCE
MCNC Research & Development Institute, a North Carolina-based nonprofit
research organization, recently presented the latest Grid computing services
for information retrieval and network provisioning at the 2004 Global Grid
Forum conference in Berlin. MCNC-RDI led the Grid Information Retrieval
working group in a discussion about the standardization of interfaces for
Grid-based information retrieval and announced at the conference that it would
be releasing a prototype implementation of the technology. In addition, MCNC-
RDI demonstrated its Just-In-Time (JIT) network provisioning protocol.
MCNC-RDI demonstrated its prototype Grid Information Retrieval (GridIR)
implementation for the Global Grid Forum's Grid Information Retrieval working
group, which was founded by MCNC-RDI and is co-chaired by Kevin Gamiel, a
systems analyst programmer for MCNC-RDI. The working group is responsible for
establishing the standards for information retrieval for Grid computing.
GridIR is not a search engine. It is a framework that enables search engines
to work in a Grid environment. The working group seeks to provide a
standardized model and communications interface for weaving advanced
information retrieval systems across loosely coupled, heterogeneous nodes in
Grid computing environments. With the release of the prototype implementation
of the GridIR standard, the technology will evolve into a reference
implementation as the standards mature.
"By releasing the prototype GridIR toolkit, MCNC-RDI is continuing a
tradition
of leadership in developing and promoting open standards and open source
software in advanced information retrieval," Gamiel said. "This release is the
beginning of a cycle of usage and feedback that will improve the quality of
the standards as well as the reference implementation."
The GridIR toolkit will implement the standard interfaces while providing
users the means to leverage existing investment in information retrieval
technology. Just-in-Time Network Provisioning MCNC-RDI researchers introduced
the novel capabilities of its Just-in-Time (JIT) signaling protocol to the
Grid community. During the presentation, MCNC-RDI's principal scientist Gigi
Karmous-Edwards highlighted the protocol's benefits for big science and high-
bandwidth applications. She also introduced the new GridJIT service, software
that enables JIT to work in a Grid environment. Grid applications can request
network connections via GridJIT, which is compliant with Open Grid Services
Architecture (OGSA).
The JIT signaling protocol provides ultra-fast provisioning of network
connections. JIT signaling is being used to create a new optical network
service that features fine-grain multiplexing of wavelengths. The protocol
enables the transmission of high capacity signals of different formats, data
rates, and protocols to address existing inefficiencies of today's
conventional networks for high performance and bandwidth intensive
applications. JIT minimizes network latency through the elimination of round-
trip handshakes allowing connections to be quickly (within a few milliseconds)
set up and released.
"The GridJIT service is an enabler of Grid computing through high-speed,
on-
demand, application-initiated provisioning of bandwidth," said Karmous-
Edwards. "In a Grid environment, which requires communication among widely
dispersed computing and data resources, JIT reduces latency and enables more
efficient use of the network."
The GridJIT service is offered through MCNC-RDI's JIT Protocol Accelerator
Controller (JITPAC), currently prototyped in both hardware and software
versions. The GridJIT service works with today's existing infrastructure
equipment such as add/drop multiplexers, multi-protocol service platforms, and
all-photonic switches. The demonstration held at GGF showcased the GridJIT
service along with an emulation of a JITPAC (software version) controlled
switch and a second JIT client allowing Grid experts to see the technology's
functionality in action. Since October 2002, hardware prototypes of the JITPAC
and JIT client software have been deployed at the all-optical Advanced
Technology Demonstration Network (ATDnet), located in Washington, D.C., End-
to-end connections are established within a few milliseconds (approximately 15
ms) through JITPACs that are physically interfaced with optical switches from
Lambda Optical Systems. ATDnet links host systems at the U.S. Department of
Defense's Laboratory for Telecommunications Sciences, the Naval Research
Laboratory's Center for Computational Science and the Defense Intelligence
Agency.
The JITPAC is capable of interfacing to all existing commercial
off-the-shelf
switches via a customizable TL1, SNMP or proprietary interfaces for the
purpose of controlling the switches. In addition, the JIT control plane is
also poised to take advantage of the industry's emerging optical technology
advances, such as bufferless all-photonic switched networks, nano-second
optical switch configuration times, inexpensive wavelength conversion
technology and fine-grain lambda multiplexing.
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