A layered Virtual Organization architecture for grid

Virtual Organizations (VOs) are dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources. VOs are widely accepted in grid and other distributed computing environments. Previous VO research produces several separate tools to provide part of the functionality including user registration, user mapping, authentication, authorization, and VO management. However, none of the work covers all the functionality or focuses on non-functional properties. This paper formally defines virtual organization in terms of three functional requirements and four non-functional properties. The functional requirements are user management, resource management, and VO management. The non-functional properties are decentralization, flexibility, simplicity, and efficiency. The problem is formulated as designing a VO architecture to satisfy the functional requirements and achieve the non-functional properties at the same time.