Holding slide prior to starting show

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Holding slide prior to starting show
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e-Science and the "Grid" Alex HardistyGrid
Centre Manager
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Synopsis

• Grid as the computing basis for e-Science
• Relevance of Grid beyond e-Science
• The UK e-Science Programme
• The Welsh e-Science Centre
• Concluding remarks
• But first, some examples ...

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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 interpreting the data
  using 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!)
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Engineering Design

• Collaborating organisations need to share
• Digital blueprints of the design
• Supercomputers for performing multi-disciplinary
  simulations
• Computer code (software) that performs those
  simulations

A new aircraft may involve 10,000 collaborating
engineers
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Post-Genomic Bioinformatics

• Based around many large federated databases
• Linked to the simulation of large molecules
  protein folding affects how new drugs dock with
  receptors
• Linked to results of large numbers of micro-array
  experiments

Wales Gene Park
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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

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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
  visualisation.

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The Computing Basis for e-Science
Imagine a world in which computational power is
as readily available as electrical power ...
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The Electrical Power Analogy

• Personal generator
• limited amount of electricity
• breakdown - left in the dark
• Electricity / power Grid
• electricity on demand via wall socket
• source unknown but reliable
• transparency and resilience are keys to its
  success

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A Grid for Computing

• A communication and computational infrastructure
  for the transparent sharing of distributed
  resources
• Pooling of computing resources
• Uniform method of coordination and control
• Pervasive and inexpensive access
• Keys to success
• same as for the Electricity Grid

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Characteristic Transparency

• The user is not aware (and doesnt care) what
  computing resources are used to solve their
  problem
• Similarly, in an electrical grid we ignore the
  source of the power

• Heterogeneity
• Resource discovery
• Scheduling

Distributed computing issues
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Characteristic Pervasiveness

• Accessed from any networked device
• desktop, laptop, mobile phone, PDA, etc.
• In electrical analogy, any appliance can access
  power through a standard interface, i.e., a wall
  socket

• Standard interfaces
• Protocols
• Legacy software

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Characteristic Community

• Communities (virtual organizations) share
  geographically distributed resources as they
  pursue common goals
• Multiple domains of control

• Security / AAA
• Policies
• QoS

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Other Grid Characteristics

• Dependability The Grid must be robust and
  resilient to failure.
• Efficiency Resources should not be wasted, good
  load balancing needed.
• Cost For broad impact The Grid should be
  inexpensive.
• Portability Grid applications should be able to
  run on a wide range of hardware.

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Example Grids

• EU
• Datagrid to deal with product of CERNs LHC
• National Science Foundation
• NEES Network for Earthquake Engineering
  Simulation
• Scripps Research Institute
• fightAIDS_at_home
• NASA
• Information Power Grid

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A Taxonomy for Grids

• Compute Grids, Data Grids
• Gordon Bell (Microsoft)
• Cycle stealing (seti_at_home, fightAids_at_home)
• File distribution / sharing for Intellectual
  Property theft e.g., Napster
• Databases / or programs for a
  community(astronomy, bioinformatics, CERN)
• Workbenches Workflow for chemistry, biology,
  etc.
• Exchanges many sites operating together (VO)
• Single, large objectified pipeline e.g. NASA.
• Grid as a cluster platform! Transparent
  arbitrary access including load balancing

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Grid as the basis for e-Science
Imagine a world in which computational power is
as readily available as electrical power ...
a world in which computing power, stored data,
scientific instruments, visualisation platforms
and people are linked in Virtual Organisations
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• monster computing power the likes of which
  we've never seen before
• Sir Terence Matthews, Welsh-born Entrepreneur

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Relevance Beyond e-Science?

• What is Grid good for?
• A biochemist exploits 10,000 computers to screen
  100,000 compounds in an hour
• 1,000 physicists worldwide pool resources to
  analyse petabytes of data
• Civil engineers collaborate to design, execute,
  analyse shake table experiments
• Climate scientists visualise, annotate, analyse
  terabyte simulation datasets

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What is Grid Good for? (2)

• A multidisciplinary analysis in aerospace couples
  code and data in four companies
• An emergency team couples real time data about
  the spread of a disease / toxin, a weather model
  and demographic data to plan the response to a
  crisis
• A home user invokes architectural design
  functions at an application service provider

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What is Grid Good for? (3)

• Scientists working for a multinational soap
  company design and trial a new product
• A Residents Association pools members PCs to
  analyse alternative designs for a local traffic
  calming scheme
• Using an adaptive display environment, medical
  staff collaborate using 3-D MRI scan data linked
  to patient records

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Who is Interested?

• e-Business
• Aerospace, Automotive, Bioscience, Defence, Media
  Entertainment, Engineering, Financial, ICT,
  Manufacturing, Medical Healthcare, Oil Gas,
  Pharmaceutical
• How to identify?
• High tech organisations with RTD need
• Specialist suppliers in a consortium
• e-Government

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Grid as a Change Enabler?

• Notion of using information to automatically
  inform collaborative processes of (for example)
  planning, design and decision-making rather than
  just retrieving information
• the "Semantic Grid"
• Economic opportunities for new products and
  services
• Grid enabled applications
• Grid Service Providers, trading exchanges
• Work and social transformations

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• ... the start of a new era of IT technology
  with huge commercial spin-offs beyond the
  scientific objectives
• Prof. Ian Halliday, Chief Exec. of PPARC

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UK e-Science Programme

• Spending Reviews
• 2000 120m for 3 years
• 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 and develop generic
  Grid middleware

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UK e-Science Network

• National Centre in Edinburgh/Glasgow
• 8 regional centres
• Grid support centre

Edinburgh
Glasgow
Newcastle
Belfast
Manchester
DL
Cambridge
Oxford
Hinxton (EBI)
RAL
Cardiff
London
Southampton
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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/

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Resources

• Monster Computing Power
• Locally SUN, SGI, storage, visualisation
• Resources of the national grid !
• Access via Broadband
• Grid expertise much of it free
• Full-time staff (4)
• Related Researchers (20)

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Training and User Support

• Grid technologies
• Installation troubleshooting
• Java Programming for the Grid (Using the Globus
  Toolkit)
• High Performance Computing
• Parallel Computing, MPI, etc.
• Visualisation
• Techniques for visualisation
• Using AVS

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Projects (1)

• COVITE
• Collaborative Virtual Teams
• RAVE
• Resource Aware Visualisation Environment
• Triana Grid
• Visual workflow composition environment
• Workflow execution engine and resource management

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Projects (2)

• CONOISE-G
• Agents negotiating to form consortia
• Mechanisms for the provision of trusted Grid
  services
• GECEM
• Computational electromagnetics
• Mesh generation, linear solver, visualization,
• DIPSO
• Complex multi-variate problems in, e.g.,
  engineering or financial services

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Research Foci

• Data and knowledge management
• Interoperation of heterogeneous distributed
  information resources
• Techniques to improve accessibility to data
• Problem-solving environments
• To provide assistance in formulating and solving
  problems in specific domains e.g., bio-molecular
  modelling
• Distributed visualisation
• Collaborative 3-D immersive visualisation

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The UKs e-Science Grid

• Level 1
• Skeleton Grid operational now
• Based around Globus pre-v2.0 releases
• Level 2
• Expected to be operational March 2003
• Based around Globus v2.0
• National Grid Information Service for resource /
  application discovery
• Local accounting information
• Simple tools for user management
• Nationally deployed useful applications
• Potentially, a Grid Computing Testbed

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Globus Toolkit

• Bag of software components for enabling Grid
  resources
• Based around 4 protocols
• Security Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI)
• Resource Management Grid Resource Allocation
  Management (GRAM)
• Information Services Grid Resource Information
  Protocol (GRIP)
• Data Transfer Grid File Transfer Protocol
  (GridFTP)

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Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)

• Extends Globus to embrace Web Services
• (WS network-enabled, platform independent,
  software components that provide some capability
  through the exchange of messages)
• Strong support
• IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Platform, Sun, Avaki,
  Entropia, United Devices
• In the future? For an entity to be part of the
  Grid it must implement OGSA

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Concluding Remarks (Almost!)

• Vision of e-Science and the Grid is ambitious and
  far-reaching
• This is the start of the Grid era. Its a long
  term programme
• Significant commercial benefits to be gained
• WeSC exists to help scientists and industrialists
  use this new technology

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Take-up of Grid
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The Grid in Wales

• Today
• WeSC resources
• Soon
• Other Grid enabled machines in CU and elsewhere
• Welsh Bioinformatics Network
• Future
• Yr Grid Gymraeg

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• a major leap forward in technology. We have
  got more than a foot in the door - we are there
  and thats very important for Wales
• Rhodri Morgan, First Minister NAfW

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