http://www.grid-support.ac.uk
http://www.ngs.ac.uk
Slides from Peter Berrisford, RAL
For a full SRB tutorial, see: http://www.niees.ac.uk/events/srb http://www.nesc.ac.uk/ http://www.pparc.ac.uk/ http://www.eu-egee.org/

• http://www.sdsc.edu/srb/
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• Storage Resource Broker (SRB) is a software product developed by the San Diego Supercomputing Centre
(SDSC).
• Allows users to access files and database objects across a distributed environment.
• Actual physical location and way the data is stored is abstracted from the user
• Allows the user to add user defined metadata describing the scientific content of the information
Peter Berrisford
RAL
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MCAT
Database c d
MCAT
Server
SRB A
Server b e f a g
SRB
Client
SRB B
Server
• 4 major components:
– The Metadata Catalogue
(MCAT)
– The MCAT-Enabled
SRB Server
– The SRB Storage Server
– The SRB Client
Peter Berrisford
RAL
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• Provide a user interface to send requests to the SRB server.
• 4 main interfaces:
– Command line (S-Commands)
– MS Windows (InQ)
– Web based (MySRB).
– Java (JARGON)
• Web Services (MATRIX)
Peter Berrisford
RAL
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Database Servers @ Manchester
DB1
DB n
Online Replication
Disk
Farm
MCAT SRB
Server
MCAT Server @ Manchester
Failover link
MCAT Server @ RAL
MCAT SRB
Server
User
DB1
DB n
Database Servers @ RAL
SRB server @ Leeds
Resource Driver
SRB server @ RAL
Resource Driver
SRB server @ Oxford
Resource Driver
SRB server @ HPCX
Resource Driver
Disk Farm
Disk
Farm
Disk
Farm
Disk
Farm
Peter Berrisford
RAL
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• SRB provides NGS users with
– a virtual filesystem
– Accessible from all core nodes and from the “UI” / desktop
– (will provide) redundancy – mirrored catalogue server
– Replica files
– Support for application metadata associated with files
Peter Berrisford
RAL
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8

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• Location: A physical node running an SRB Server
• Physical Resource: A storage area managed by an SRB
Server
• Logical Resource: One or more Physical Resources – can be distributed
• Collection – Data abstraction of resources
Peter Berrisford
RAL
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• The MCAT database is a metadata repository that provides a mechanism for storing information used by the SRB system.
• Includes both
– Internal system data required for running the system
– Application (user) metadata regarding data sets being brokered by SRB.
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• At least one SRB Server must be installed on the node that can access the MCAT database. This is known as the MCAT-Enabled
SRB Server.
• MCAT SRB Server works directly against the MCAT database to provide SRB Services
• All other SRB Servers interact through the MCAT Server
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• The SRB Server is a middleware application that accepts requests from clients and obtains/queries/manages the necessary data sets.
• It queries the MCAT SRB Server to gather information on datasets and supplies this back to the
SRB client.
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