Holding slide prior to starting show. The Grid : Infrastructure and Opportunities Alex Hardisty Grid...
-
Upload
ralf-charles -
Category
Documents
-
view
218 -
download
0
Transcript of Holding slide prior to starting show. The Grid : Infrastructure and Opportunities Alex Hardisty Grid...
What is the Grid?
• Visions of Internet Computing:– Grid computing – Utility computing– IP dial tone– Pervasive or ubiquitous computing
• Much more than just a faster Internet– An emerging communication and computing
infrastructure ……for transparent sharing of distributed computing resources
Why Do We Need It?
• e-Science– “science increasingly done through
distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet, using very large data collections, tera-scale computing resources and high performance visualization.”
Collaborative Scientific Experiments
• Physicists collaborating in an international experiment need to share:– Experimental data and storage resources– Computers and software for extracting
information from this data– Computers and software for large-scale
computer simulations
Large Hadron Collider (CERN): raw data rate = 1 Petabyte/sec
Filtered rate = 100Mbyte/sec (1 Petabyte/year) = 1 Million CD ROMs ( ~200m3!)
Engineering Design
• Collaborating organisations need to share:– Digital blueprints of the design– Supercomputers for performing multi-
disciplinary simulations– Software and data for performing those
simulations
A new aircraft may involve 10,000 collaborating engineers
Crisis Management
• A crisis management team might be drawn from government, the emergency and health services, and academia. Need to share:– Information on the individuals who have caught
the disease– Information on the resources available to tackle
the infection– Epidemiological simulations to predict spread of
the infection under different assumptions
Bioterrorism - control and eradicate a virulent strain of disease
“Post-Genomic” Bioinformatics
• Increasing size, complexity and diversity of databases of biological information– Linkage and optimal exploitation
• Filtering results of micro-array experiments– 30 or 40 results out of 1 million
• Simulation of large molecules– Protein folding affects how drugs dock with
receptors
Wales Gene Park
Elements in Common• Coordinated problem solving
– Beyond client-server: distributed data analysis, computation, collaboration, …
– … Problem Solving Environments
• Resource sharing– Computers, data, instruments, networks
• Multi-institutional “virtual organisations”– Overlying traditional organisational structures– Large or small, static or dynamic
The Grid Vision
• Where this power is made available as "services" to users with differing levels of expertise
• Where "services" interact to perform specified tasks with a minimum of human intervention
Imagine a world in which computing power is as readily available as electrical power …..
Why is the Grid important?
• Gives access to more computing power• Makes more computing and data
resources more readily available• Permits collaborative working and
resource sharing through virtual organisations and communities
• Creates new economic resources, products and services
Benefits from the Grid
• Lower cost of computing
• Increased flexibility– to tackle large-scale problems
• Empowers individuals and organisations – towards better collaboration within and
between organisations
• Will enhance economic competitiveness, security and quality of life– engine for transformation in our personal lives, our
work, and our society
UK e-Science Programme• Spending Reviews
– 2000 : £98m for 3 years (+ £20m from DTI)– 2002 : Further £115m for years 4 & 5
• Development of key IT infrastructure to support e-Science • Managed by Research Councils & DTI
– Application specific Pilot Projects– Core programme to identify, develop and deploy generic Grid middleware
UK e-Science Network
RAL
National Centre in Edinburgh/Glasgow
8 regional centres Grid support centre
Cambridge
Newcastle
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Cardiff
Southampton
Belfast
Oxford
LondonHinxton(EBI)
ManchesterDL
Welsh e-Science Centre• Based at Cardiff University
– Department of Computer Science– Funded by DTI, WDA and CU
• Role:– Promote e-Science research and development
in Wales and South-west of England– Accelerate the adoption of e-Science & Grid
capabilities
http://www.wesc.ac.uk/
Our Role in Practice
• Provision of infrastructure
• Development of the technology
• Outreach to encourage:– Use of e-Science technologies by
researchers– Collaborative research projects– Technology transfer to industry
Resources
• “Monster Computing Power”– Locally: SUN, SGI, storage, visualisation– Resources of the “national grid” !– Access via Broadband
• Grid expertise for training and support– Full-time staff (4)– Related Researchers (~20)
Industry Collaborators
• Activeplan Solutions• Avantis World• BAE Systems• BTexact• Evotec• HP• SEA Group• SGI
• Discussions– Amersham Biosciences– BBC Nations & Regions– Clearspeed Technology– IBM– MIT Media Lab Europe
Projects
• Collaborative virtual teams• Resource-aware visualisation environment• Visual workflow composition environment• Workflow execution engine and resource
management• Agents negotiating to form consortia• Mechanisms for trusted Grid services
Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise?
• e-Health– electronic patient records, distributed and/or
remote diagnosis, collaborative surgical planning• e-Business
– streamline, distribute, and enhance business processes
• e-Commerce– marketplace for both traditional and innovative
goods and services• e-Learning
– remove barriers to education and training
Governance and Democracy
• e-Democracy– involve citizens in the democratic processes of the
nation
• e-Government– transform relations between government and
citizens, businesses, and other arms of government
– better delivery of government services – empowerment through access to information
Based on people’s needs, not bureaucratic needs
Concluding Remarks
• The vision of the Grid and e-Science is ambitious and far-reaching
• The Grid is an engine for economic progress and social change driven by a confluence of technologies
• This is the start of the Grid era. It’s a long term programme