Ninf-G: A Reference Implementation of RPC-based Programming Middleware for Grid Computing

GridRPC, which is an RPC mechanism tailored for the Grid, is an attractive programming model for Grid computing. This paper reports on the design and implementation of a GridRPC programming system called Ninf-G. Ninf-G is a reference implementation of the GridRPC API which has been proposed for standardization at the Global Grid Forum. In this paper, we describe the design, implementations and typical usage of Ninf-G. A preliminary performance evaluation in both WAN and LAN environments is also reported. Implemented on top of the Globus Toolkit, Ninf-G provides a simple and easy programming interface based on standard Grid protocols and the API for Grid Computing. The overhead of remote procedure calls in Ninf-G is acceptable in both WAN and LAN environments.     

A resource broker with an efficient network information model on grid environments

This paper describes a resource broker whose main function is to match available resources to user needs. The resource broker provides a uniform interface for accessing available and appropriate resources via user credentials. We also focus on providing approximate measurement models for network-related information using NWS for future scheduling and benchmarking. We first propose a network measurement model for gathering network-related information (including bandwidth, latency, forecasting, error rates, etc.) without generating excessive system overhead. Second, we constructed a grid platform using Globus Toolkit that integrates the resources of five schools in Taichung integrated grid environment resources (TIGER). The resource broker runs on top of TIGER. Therefore, it provides security and current information about available resources and serves as a link to the diverse systems available in the Grid.

A grouped P2P network for scalable grid information services

Information services play a crucial role in grid environments in that the state information can be used to facilitate the discovery of resources and the services available to meet user requirements, and also to help tune the performance of a grid system. However, the large size and dynamic nature of the grid brings forth a number of challenges for information services. This paper presents PIndex, a grouped peer-to-peer network that can be used for scalable grid information services. PIndex builds on Globus MDS4, but introduces peer groups to dynamically split the large grid information search space into many small sections to enhance its scalability and resilience. PIndex is subsequently modeled with Colored Petri Nets for performance evaluation. The simulation results show that PIndex is scalable and resilient in dealing with a large number of peer nodes.

Tougher: A user-friendly graphical interface for TOUGHREACT

TOUGHREACT is a powerful simulator for multiphase fluid, heat, and chemical transport, but has a steep learning curve and the creation of the input files is time intensive, particularly for heterogeneous and complex geometries such as those in mining rock pile formations. TOUGHER is an application developed by the acid rock drainage research group of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah in order to develop TOUGHREACT models rapidly for two-dimensional problems and to be able to visualize the simulation results in an intuitive way. It also reduces errors when creating complex layered 2D models and makes debugging easier. The software is currently limited to 2D rectangular grids with constant spatial sizes. The application is written in C++ and can be used on any computer with a Windows or Linux operating system. This paper will describe the overall structure of the application and give some examples of how it interfaces with the TOUGHREACT program. In particular, it will be shown how the application can generate a grid system for a rock pile containing several distinct geological layers, how the properties of each layer are set, and how the input sections (ELEM and CONNE) for TOUGHREACT are generated automatically. In addition, visualizing the flow and chemical output files generated by TOUGHREACT for a particular rock pile will be demonstrated. This includes transient vector as well as transient scalar data. At the end of the paper, two case studies, one with a simplified geometry and another with more complex layered rock geometry, will be presented.     

A knowledge grid model and platform for global knowledge sharing

This paper proposes a knowledge grid model for sharing and managing globally distributed knowledge resources. The model organizes knowledge in a three-dimensional knowledge space, and provides a knowledge grid operation language, KGOL. Internet users can use the KGOL to create their knowledge grids, to put knowledge to them, to edit knowledge, to partially or wholly open their grids to all or some particular grids, and to get the required knowledge from the open knowledge of all the knowledge grids. The model enables people to conveniently share knowledge with each other when they work on the Internet. A software platform based on the proposed model has been implemented and used for knowledge sharing in research teams.     

基于Globus Toolkit和SunTM ONE Grid Engine构建计算网格

网格计算(grid computing)是近几年发展起来的一个崭新研究领域,引起国内外学术界及工业界的广泛关注。其目的是研究如何安全有效地将现有的各种计算资源(尤其是那些分布在Internet的异构网络中的计算资源)组织起来协同解决复杂的科学及工程计算问题。在化学信息学和生物信息学中最典型的应用是虚拟高通量筛选侯选药物分子。本文以两个Linux机群为基础,用开放源码的网格支持软件包Globus Toolkit 3．2及Sun^TM ONE Grid Engine 5．3成功构建了计算网格;并通过设计测试程序实现一次性提交多个作业(300个)以及分析作业在计算网格中各个节点的分配及运行情况,从而测试了计算网格的效率。结果表明,所构建的计算网格在保持原机群运行稳定、可靠的前提下,改进了系统资源的分配管理方式以及用户提交作业的方法,从整体上提高了网络计算资源的利用率,也同时方便了系统的管理。     

Utility-based QoS optimisation strategy for multi-criteria scheduling on the grid

The paper presents quality of service (QoS) optimisation strategy for multi-criteria scheduling on the grid, based on a mathematical QoS model and a distributed iterative algorithm. Three QoS criteria are considered, namely payment, deadline and reliability, which are formulated as utility function. The optimisation problem is split into two parts: task optimisation performed on behalf of the user and resource optimisation performed on behalf of the grid. The strategy employs three types of agents: task agents responsible for task optimisation, computation resource and network resource agents responsible for resource optimisation. The agents apply economic models for optimisation purposes. Dynamic programming is used to optimise the total system utility function in terms of an iterative algorithm. The objective of multi-criteria scheduling is to maximise the global utility of the system. This paper proposes an iterative scheduling algorithm that is used to perform QoS optimisation-based multi-criteria scheduling. The proposed QoS optimisation-based multi-criteria scheduling problem solution has been practically examined by simulation experiments.     

A rotary chaotic PSO algorithm for trustworthy scheduling of a grid workflow

In this paper, a rotary chaotic particle swarm optimization (RCPSO) algorithm is presented to solve trustworthy scheduling of a grid workflow. In general, the grid workflow scheduling is a complex optimization problem which requires considering various scheduling criteria so as to meet a wide range of QoS requirements from users. Traditional researches into grid workflow scheduling mainly focus on the optimization constrained by time and cost. The key requirements for reliability, availability and security are not considered adequately. The main contribution of this study is to propose a new approach for trustworthy workflow scheduling in a large-scale grid with rich service resources, and present the RCPSO algorithm to optimize the scheduling performance in a multi-dimensional complex space. Experiments were done in two grid applications with at most 120 candidate services supplied to each task of various workflows. The results show better performance of the RCPSO in solving trustworthy scheduling of grid workflow problems as compared to GA, ACO and other recent variants of PSO.     

论矿山物联网的结构性平台与服务性平台

分析了目前煤矿综合自动化存在的主要问题,提出需采用物联网技术及其平台性来实现矿山物理世界的实时控制、精确管理和科学决策;指出矿山物联网的3层架构决定了矿山物联网是一种开放式平台,且该平台体现为结构性平台和服务性平台;提出矿山物联网的结构性平台应具有开放的感知层平台、开放的主干传输平台以及开放的应用基础平台;根据目前煤矿实际需求,介绍了矿山物联网服务性平台中的分布式监测监控底层服务平台、为第三方提供公共服务的平台、多学科协同工作平台以及云服务平台;最后指出结构性平台可确保服务性平台的有效实施,服务性平台有利于矿山不同专业在同一个公共平台上协同工作,形成一种新的基于物联网的协同工作模式,同时有利于将各种不同的应用服务集成到矿山物联网中,推动矿山安全生产所需服务的专业化发展。     

流通信息化业务管理及接入平台结构研究

在商品流通销售领域涉及到采购、物流、零售、批发和在线支付等各种业务,这些业务有较为成熟的软硬件系统支持,但是如何为这些系统构建统一、交互、方便和可靠的支撑平台,使得商品流通销售完全信息化迄今并没有得到研究。提出了流通销售领域各种公共支撑业务和管理,研究了如何将它们集成起来建立一个支撑平台,同时对各种业务提供统一的接入接口,使得商品流通销售实现一点接入、全网服务,进而完全实现流通销售领域各个环节的信息交互和共享。     

嵌入式移动GIS开发运行平台的设计与实现

在已有的自主设计的移动数据库管理系统SwiftDB的基础上,设计了一个嵌入式移动GIS开发运行平台SwiftGISBP,实现了企业信息系统与GIS系统的集成.在分析嵌入式移动GIS开发运行平台结构的基础上,重点介绍了开发该平台的几种关键技术:电子地图的制作、基于格网的栅矢地图数据结构、企业信息管理业务模块、事件触发机制,最后结合应用实例介绍其实现过程.     

商业软件的并行网格计算平台模型及实现

以ANSYS和FLUENT为例,分析了商业软件在工作站机群并行运行的优势.将并行运行与网格计算相结合,提出了两者结合的软件结构和硬件结构,实现了并行计算资源的Web发布,从而提高商业软件和高性能计算资源的利用率,为大规模科学工程计算提供了良好的运算平台.同时平台实现用户认证,过载保护和实时监控功能.     

An active styling platform for designing and developing product families

In recent years, fierce market competition has increased the need for incorporating manufacturing flexibility into product styling. The product styling platform approach proposed in this paper offers an insight into how this challenge can be dealt with by transforming an existing product fashion into an intangible styling module with the view to refreshing its appeal. This paper addresses the important issues of how the approach can be turned into a robust applicational tool to facilitate the design of product families to satisfy diverse customer needs. The paper investigates the nature and quantification of modular styling. By capturing and analysing design experts’ opinions on product styling, the evolution of a fashion can be quantified in the form of a schema of diffusion styles. The study has also led to the development of the ideas of “Prompt Time Market Segmentation Grid” and the “Active Style Diagnosis”. The concepts are applied in an “Active Product Styling Platform” with scalable and expandable capabilities to enhance the effectiveness of conventional product styling practices. This approach can also help the formation of product style families and facilitate the development of products particularly in a mass customisation environment.     

A computational economy for grid computing and its implementation in the Nimrod-G resource broker

Computational grids that couple geographically distributed resources such as PCs, workstations, clusters, and scientific instruments, have emerged as a next generation computing platform for solving large-scale problems in science, engineering, and commerce. However, application development, resource management, and scheduling in these environments continue to be a complex undertaking. In this article, we discuss our efforts in developing a resource management system for scheduling computations on resources distributed across the world with varying quality of service (QoS). Our service-oriented grid computing system called Nimrod-G manages all operations associated with remote execution including resource discovery, trading, scheduling based on economic principles and a user-defined QoS requirement. The Nimrod-G resource broker is implemented by leveraging existing technologies such as Globus, and provides new services that are essential for constructing industrial-strength grids. We present the results of experiments using the Nimrod-G resource broker for scheduling parametric computations on the World Wide Grid (WWG) resources that span five continents.     

基于Web服务的校园信息化平台的设计和实现

数字化校园是高校信息化建设的发展方向.设计并实现了一个小型化的数字化校园方案--校园信息化平台,该平台以Web Services（Web服务）为信息集成的核心技术,可以集成学校现有的多种形式的信息系统,并为此提供了统一的数据中心、统一安全身份认证中心、统一用户权限管理中心和统一的用户界面.介绍了该校园信息化平台的模型以及系统的总体框架,并分析了实现该平台的一些关键技术.     

Simflowny: A general-purpose platform for the management of physical models and simulation problems

Simflowny is a software platform which aims to formalize the main elements of a simulation flow. It allows users to manage (i) formal representations of physical models based on Initial Value Problems (hyperbolic, parabolic and mixed-type partial differential equations), (ii) simulation problems based on such models, and (iii) discretization schemes to translate the problem to a finite mesh. Additionally, Simflowny generates automatically code for general-purpose simulation frameworks. This paper first presents an introductory example of such problems. Then, formal representations are explained. Afterwards, it summarizes the platform’s architecture. Finally, validation results are provided.     

基于微信校园平台多功能移动服务模式探索与实现

以百度微信校园项目为基础,开发了微信校园多功能移动服务模块,该模块可实现课表查询、成绩查询、掌上图书馆、天气查询、快递查询、公交查询、外卖订购、学术交流等多种信息查询与推送功能,模块除满足用户获取信息资源的时效性、便捷性外,还能更好地适应大学生个性化的信息服务需求,同时利用微信校园服务新模式,也可为大学生创业提供新的商机。     

A parallel micro evolutionary algorithm for heterogeneous computing and grid scheduling

This work presents a novel parallel micro evolutionary algorithm for scheduling tasks in distributed heterogeneous computing and grid environments. The scheduling problem in heterogeneous environments is NP-hard, so a significant effort has been made in order to develop an efficient method to provide good schedules in reduced execution times. The parallel micro evolutionary algorithm is implemented using MALLBA, a general-purpose library for combinatorial optimization. Efficient numerical results are reported in the experimental analysis performed on both well-known problem instances and large instances that model medium-sized grid environments. The comparative study of traditional methods and evolutionary algorithms shows that the parallel micro evolutionary algorithm achieves a high problem solving efficacy, outperforming previous results already reported in the related literature, and also showing a good scalability behavior when facing high dimension problem instances.     

A system-centric scheduling policy for optimizing objectives of application and resource in grid computing

In grid computing, grid users who submit applications and resources providers who provide resources have different motivations when they join the grid. Application-centric scheduling aims to optimize the performance of individual application. Resource-centric scheduling aims to optimize the resource utilization of resources provider. Due to autonomy both in grid users and resource providers, the objectives of application-centric and resource-centric scheduling often conflict. The paper proposes a system-centric scheduling that provides a solution of joint optimization of the objectives for both the grid resource and grid application. Utility functions are used to express the objectives of grid resource and application. The system-centric scheduling policy can be formulated as joint optimization of utilities of grid applications and grid resources, which combine both application centric and resource-centric scheduling benefits. Simulations are conducted to study the performance of the system-centric scheduling algorithm. The experiment results show that the system-centric scheduling algorithm yields significantly better performance than application-centric scheduling algorithm and resource-centric scheduling algorithm.