[Pgi-wg] Definition of a Production Grid : Multi-institutional Infrastructure for e-Science

[Laurence Field]

Hi Etienne,

I think we have all agreed to drop the word "production" as it infers 
something that is very subjective. What I hope that we are nowdoing is 
identifying types of Grids.

My proposal is that one type of Grid has the IGTF as trust anchor. As 
the I in IGTF standard for International this is also a key property.

You have highlighted two other types of Grids, 'Service Grids' and 
'Desktop Grids'.

So we have now identified 5 different types Campus Grid, NGIs, Service 
Grids, Desktop Grids and Multi-institutional International 
Infrastructures for e-Science. The fact that we are using different 
words to describe these suggests that they are subtly different 
otherwise we could just use the word Grid.

Laurence




Etienne URBAH wrote:
> Laurence and all,
>
> Concerning the definition of a Production Grid :
>
> Lot of thanks to Laurence for proposing the first definition, and for 
> proposing 'Multi-institutional International Infrastructures for 
> e-Science'.
>
> Following David WALLOM, I think that 'International' is too 
> restrictive.  The key point is that a Production Grid spans 
> institutional boundaries, which presents a whole load of policy and 
> legal issues.
>
>
> So I propose 'Multi-institutional Infrastructure for e-Science'.
>
>
> Today, there can be Production Grids which do NOT use IGTF as trust 
> anchor.
> But for interoperability, they will have to migrate and use IGTF as 
> trust anchor.
>
>
> Inside the EDGeS project, we think that 'Production Grids' encompass 
> both 'Service Grids' and 'Desktop Grids'.
>
> Shortly :
>
> -  A Service Grid (SG) is a managed grid of managed computing 
> clusters, offering a guaranteed QoS (Quality of Service).  Typically, 
> institutions with their managed clusters can join to SGs if they sign 
> a certain SLA (Service Level Agreement) with the leadership of the 
> SG.  Since participants to a SG are most often institutions, an SG is 
> often called an 'Institutional Computing Grid'.
>    Examples of such service grid infrastructures are EGEE, NorduGrid, 
> OSG, DEISA, TeraGrid.
>
> -  A Desktop Grid (DG) is a loose opportunistic grid using idle 
> resources.  Inside desktop grids, computing and storage resources are 
> typically owned by individual volunteer owners and not by institutes 
> (therefore it is often called volunteer computing).
>    Even if each single desktop computer provides a very low QoS, a 
> desktop grid of reasonable size can, as a whole, provide a defined QoS 
> and sign a SLA.
>    Examples of such desktop grid systems are BOINC, XtremWeb, OurGrid, 
> Xgrid.
>
>
> You can find a full description with drawings in chapter 5 
> 'Technological context of the EDGeS project' of EDGeS deliverable 
> DNA3.1 at 
> http://www.edges-grid.eu:8080/c/document_library/get_file?p_l_id=11065&folderId=27671&name=DLFE-1042.pdf 
>
>
> If you can NOT access this document, please let me now, I would then 
> upload it to Gridforge.
>
>
> Best regards.