Grid Middleware for Research Communities: gLite, Globus, UNICORE and Emerging Standards

Europe/Zurich
e-Science Institute

e-Science Institute

Description

This is an initial run of this course. Participants will be invited to discuss the course structure and material to help to improve future courses.

Please note: registration must close at 12:00 on Thursday 5 July.

This course, provided by the EU-funded project OMII-Europe, will give researchers:

  • Understanding of production grid infrastructures and middleware
  • Practical experience in using three of the dominant middleware stacks: Globus, gLite and UNICORE.
  • An introduction to emerging grid standards
  • An overview of OMII-Europe and its initiatives based upon these standards.

The course is structured as:

  • A morning of introductory talks.
  • Sessions with practically oriented introductions to job submission on the different grid middleware - UNICORE, globus, gLite.
  • A final session in which the vision and goals of OMII-Europe are explained, and the current state of grid interoperability is presented.

OMII-Europe is an EU-funded project which has been established to source key software components that can interoperate across several heterogeneous Grid middleware platforms. The emphasis is on the re-engineering of software components rather than on the development of new technology. OMII-Europe will develop a repository of quality-assured Grid services running on these existing major Grid infrastructures. The OMII-Europe goals are interoperability, quality-assurance and to establish itself as an impartial broker, giving advice on heterogeneous Grid solutions.

Please register if you wish to attend the event. The morning is free, but those attending the complete course will be asked to pay £40 to cover the costs of catering. To register go to http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/793/ or email: adminteam@nesc.ac.uk

Note that on the 13 July there is an OMII-Europe course on portal development, see here.

  • Wednesday, 11 July
    • 09:30 12:55
      Introduction to Grids, Middleware and Standards

      This session of introductory talks is open to anyone who wishes to attend - but registration is still essential.... see above.

      • 09:30
        Introduction to morning 5m
      • 09:35
        Grid concepts 45m
        Slides
      • 10:20
        Production Grid Infrastructures 30m
        This talk will describe several prominent production grids: the UK's National Grid Service, the international EGEE grid, and DEISA among them.
        Slides
      • 10:50
        break 20m
      • 11:10
        Basics of Grid middleware - 1 45m
        This talk will outline the basic services that are provided by grid middleware - for job execution, data management,... It will explain the role of certificates and Certificate Authorities, as a basis for "single sign-on" to the distributed resources provided by grids.
        Slides
      • 11:55
        Basics of Grid middleware - 2 45m
        This talk explains the convergence of web services and grid middleware, introduces the OMII-Europe project and the standards that it is using for several key grid services: job execution, data access and integration, accounting. It gives a brief overview of Globus, gLite and UNICORE middleware.
        Slides
      • 12:40
        Discussion 15m
      • 12:55
        End of open session
    • 12:55 17:00
      Practical session - day 1
      • 12:55
        Introduction to course 5m
        The next sessions give practically oriented introductions to Globus, gLite and UNICORE. A final session explores issues of grid interoperability.
      • 13:00
        lunch 45m
      • 13:45
        Introduction to Globus Toolkit 4 20m
        Slides
      • 14:05
        Using Globus 1h 10m
        The practical leads participants through the creation and deployment of a WSRF service using Globus Toolkit 4.
        Practical
        Practical Files
      • 15:15
        Tea 20m
      • 15:35
        Using Globus 1h
      • 16:35
        End of day discussion 25m
    • 09:30 17:00
      Course - day 2
      • 09:30
        Introduction to gLite 20m
        Slides
      • 09:50
        Using gLite 1h 10m
        Practical
      • 11:00
        coffee 20m
      • 11:20
        continued 40m
        Files practical
      • 12:00
        Introduction to UNICORE 20m
        Slides
      • 12:20
        Using UNICORE 6 40m
      • 13:00
        lunch 45m
      • 13:45
        Using UNICORE 1h 30m
      • 15:15
        tea 20m
      • 15:35
        Next steps 20m
        During the two days participants have been led through the use of Globus, gLite and UNICORE grid middleware. The OMII-Europe project provides "Evaluation Infrastructures", and these are introduced in this talk. These EIs are available for those wishing to gain experience of different grid middlware without having to install any middleware themselves.
        Slides
      • 15:55
        Towards interoperability with OMII-Europe 50m
        At present research communiites are constrained to use resources on one grid. By engineering standards-based components that can be down-loaded from a repository of certified software, OMII-Europe is progressing towards giving researchers the ability to access and orchestrate services across grids. This talk gives the status of these developments.
        Slides
      • 16:45
        End of day discussion/feedback 15m