Basic Grid Concepts GridIrelandHEAnet Training Course December 5th, 2005

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Basic Grid ConceptsGrid-Ireland/HEAnet
Training CourseDecember 5th, 2005

• Brian Coghlan
• coghlan_at_cs.tcd.ie

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Acknowledgements

• This talk includes many slides prepared by Mike
  Mineter of NeSC for EGEE, which itself included
  slides from previous tutorials and talks
  delivered by
• Dave Berry, Richard Hopkins (National e-Science
  Centre)
• the EDG training team
• Ian Foster, Argonne National Laboratories
• Jeffrey Grethe, SDSC
• EGEE colleagues

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Overview

• Goal To introduce the concepts of Grid computing
  assuming no previous knowledge
• Cover the topics of
• Why Grids?
• What is a grid?
• Is it secure?

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Contents

• Why Grids?
• What is a Grid?
• Is it Secure?

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Before Grids
There must be a better way of doing this!!!
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Middleware
MIDDLEWARE
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With Grids
Slide derived from EDG / LCG tutorials
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Why the word Grid?

• The word Grid is used by analogy with the
  electric power grid, which provides pervasive
  access to electricity
• Foster and Kesselman
• - The Grid 2

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The grid vision

• The grid vision is of Virtual computing
• Compare this to the web
• Web pages are virtual documents
• A search engine is used to locate these
  resources.
• The effect of collaboration through sharing
  resources is to expand the horizons of
• Research
• Science, engineering, medicine,
• Commerce
• the knowledge economy
• Public service
• health, environment,

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Contents

• Why Grids?
• What is a Grid?
• Is it Secure?

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Expanding Horizons

• The initial vision The Grid
• The present reality many grids
• Each grid is an infrastructure enabling one or
  more virtual organisations (VOs) to share
  computing resources
• What makes a VO?
• People in different organisations seeking to
  cooperate and share resources across their
  organisational boundaries

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The Single Computer

• The Operating System enables easy use of
• Input devices
• Processor
• Disks
• Display
• Any other attached devices

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The Local Area Network

• User just perceives shared resources, with no
  regard to location in the building
• - Authenticated
• by username/password
• - Authorised
• to use own files,
• to use shared files,

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A Grid of Resources
THE INTERNET
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Grid Musicians
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Grid Symphony
DB
DB
Resource Broker
Information Service
User
Site
Logging Bookkeeping
National Services
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The components of a Grid

• Infrastructure
• networking, computational resources, storage
  resources,
• Middleware
• the operating system of the grid, running on all
  resources.
• Operations infrastructure
• Run enabling services (people software)
• Virtual Organization management
• Procedures for gaining access to resources

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The term Grid computing

• Grid computing is a much misused term
• Sometimes in Industry Grids clusters
• Also used to refer to the harvesting of unused
  compute cycles
• e.g. SETI_at_home, climateprediction.net

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Grid projects

• Many Grid development efforts all over the
  world

• UK e-Science, GridPP
• Netherlands VLAM, PolderGrid
• Germany UNICORE, D-Grid
• France EGEE,
• Italy INFN Grid
• Ireland Grid-Ireland
• Hungary DemoGrid, ClusterGrid
• Scandanavia NorduGrid, BalticGrid
• Spain IrisGrid
• Greece HellasGrid

• NASA Information Power Grid
• DOE Science Grid
• NSF National Virtual Observatory
• NSF GriPhyN
• DOE Particle Physics Data Grid
• NSF TeraGrid
• DOE ASCI Grid
• DOE Earth Systems Grid
• DARPA CoABS Grid
• NEESGrid
• DOH BIRN
• NSF iVDGL

• DataGrid (CERN, ...)
• EuroGrid (Unicore)
• DataTag (CERN,)
• Astrophysical Virtual Observatory
• GRIP (Globus/Unicore)
• GRIA (Industrial applications)
• GridLab (Cactus Toolkit)
• CrossGrid (Interactive Components)
• EGSO (Solar Physics)

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Summary (so far)

• Virtual organisation people and resources
  collaborating
• crosses admin, organisational boundaries
• Grid middleware runs on each resource
• User just perceives shared resources
• no concern for location or owning organisation

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Contents

• Why Grids?
• What is a Grid?
• Is it Secure?

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Different Perspectives

• Users need
• Single sign-on
• ability to logon to a machine and have the users
  identity passed to other resources as required
• To trust owners of resources they are using
• Resource providers need
• Risks to be controlled
• they are asked to trust users they do not know
• Minimal impact on security
• Ability to trace who did what
• The solution comes from
• Virtual Organisations
• Digital Certificates

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Users and Virtual Organisations

• Virtual Organisations and trust
• User joins a Virtual Organisation
• Digital certificate is basis of Authentication
  and Authorisation.
• Identity passed to other resources you use
• it is mapped to a local account
• mapping is maintained by the Virtual
  Organisation.
• The user trusts the Virtual Organisation
• To only enroll trustworthy members
• to only use resources that are safe and secure
• User just perceives shared resources with no
  concern for location or owning organisation

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Resource-Providers and VOs

• Virtual Organisations and trust
• A Resource-Provider trusts a Virtual Organisation
• The Virtual Organisation trusts its users
• Common agreed policies
• Acceptable Usage Policies (AUPs)
• These establish rights for a VO to use resources
• Each resource provider has different usage and
  security considerations that must be accounted for

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Digital Certificates

• A digital certificate is the basis for
• Single sign-on authentication authorisation
  non-repudiation
• Authentication
• How do I identify myself to a resource ?
• Dont want to enter username/password for each
  resource
• Authorisation
• What can I do?
• Determined by users membership of a VO
• The VO negotiates rights with resource providers
• Non-repudiation
• Was it actually you that did ?
• Non-repudiation is ability to prove you did

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Certification Authority Websites

• Certification Authorities (CAs) issue digital
  certificates
• after certifying users identity, e.g. by showing
  staff ID
• Grid certs are recognized internationally
• A list of Certification Authorities that mutually
  recognize each other http//www.gridpma.org/
• Grid-Ireland Certification Authority
• http//cagraidsvr06.cs.tcd.ie/certauth.html

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The Grid Security Infrastructure

• The Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI)
  middleware is the basis of most production grids

For all of this to work you must keep your
digital certificate secure !!!
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Contents

• Why Grids?
• What is a Grid?
• Is it Secure?
• Next
• Some Examples
• Current Status
• Conclusion