The Grid World: Current Status
Considerable consensus on key concepts and technologies
- Open source Globus Toolkit a de facto standard for major protocols & services
- Far from complete or perfect, but out there, evolving rapidly, and large tool/user base
Industrial interest emerging rapidly
- Opportunity: convergence of eScience and eBusiness requirements & technologies
Good technical solutions for key problems, e.g.
- This & good engineering is enabling progress
- Good quality reference implementation, multi-language support, interfaces to many systems, large user base, industrial support
- Growing community code base built on tools
Globus Toolkit deficiencies
- Protocol deficiencies, e.g.
- Heterogeneous basis: HTTP, LDAP, FTP
- No standard means of invocation, notification, error propagation, authorization, termination, …
- Significant missing functionality, e.g.
- Databases, sensors, instruments, workflow, …
- Virtualization of end systems (hosting envs.)
- Little work on total system properties, e.g.
- Dependability, end-to-end QoS, …
- Reasoning about system properties