ApGrid: Asia Pacific Partnership
for Grid Computing
- Introduction of testbed development
efforts in Asia Pacific Region Yoshio Tanaka
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Asia Grid Initiative
Europe
•International Collaboration
•Standardization
North
America
ApGrid Testbed
ApGrid focuses on
International Grid
Testbed over the Asia
Pacific countries
Asia
Sharing resources, knowledge,
technologies
Developing Grid technologies
Helping the use of our technologies in
create new applications
Collaboration on each others work
Possible Applications on the Grid
•Bio Informatics
（Rice Genome, etc.）
•Earth Science
（Weather forecast, Fluid
prediction, Earthquake prediction,
）
History of ApGrid
2000
2001
2002
2003
Kick-off meeting
(Yokohama, Japan)
We are here
Presentation at GF5
(Boston, USA)
ApGrid Exhibition at HPCAsia
（Gold Coast, Australia)
1st ApGrid Workshop (Tokyo, Japan)
ApGrid Exhibition / SC Global Event
at SC 2001 （Denver, USA)
ApGrid Exhibition
at SC 2002
（Baltimore, USA)
ApGrid Demo
at CCGrid 2003
(Tokyo, Japan)
1st ApGrid Core Meeting (Phuket, Thailand)
2nd ApGrid Workshop / 2nd ApGrid Core Meeting
(Taipei, Taiwan)
15 countries, 41 organizations (as of Aug, 2003)
ApGrid Testbed – features Truly multi national/political/institutional VO
not an application-driven testbed
differences in languages, culture, policy, interests,
Donation (Contribution) based
Not a single source funded for the development
Each institution contributes his own share
grass-roots approach
We can
have experiences on running international VO
verify the feasibility of this approach for the
testbed development
ApGrid Testbed – implementation Use Globus Toolkit Ver.2 as a common software
GSI based security infrastructure
Build MDS tree
ApGrid CAs’
ApGrid allows multiple root CAs
Trying to build trust-relationship between CAs
ApGrid MDS
ApGrid MDS is running on mds.apgrid.org
planning to run more top-level MDS and crossregister resources
ApGrid Testbed: Status
http://www.apgrid.org/
80
64
32
280
32
32
Lessons Learned
We have to pay much efforts for initiation
Problems on installation of GT2/PBS/jobmanger
Installation/configuration of GT2/PBS/jobmanager is
still not so easy for application people.
Most sites needed help for the installation.
Software requirements depends on the
application and middleware used by the
application.
In order to run GridRPC (Ninf-G) applications, I asked
Open firewall/TCP Wrapper
Additionally build Info SDK bundle with gcc32dbg
Install Ninf-G
change configuration of xinetd/inetd
Enable NAT
Lessons Learned (cont’d)
MDS is not scalable and still unstable
Terrible performance
GIIS lookup takes several ten seconds ~ minutes
Some parameters in grid-info-slapd.conf such
as sizelimit, timeout, cahcettl, etc., should be
set to appropriate values depends on your
environment (number of registered objects,
network performance between GRISes and
GIISes, etc.).
Well known problem ☺
Firewall, private IP addresses…
Lessons Learned (cont’d)
Difficulties caused by the grass-roots
approach.
It is not easy to keep the GT2 version
coherent between sites.
Different requirements for the Globus
Toolkit between users.
Middleware developers needs the newest one.
Application developers satisfy with using the
stable (older) one.
It is not easy to catch up frequent version up of
the Globus Toolkit.
CoG is a current problem
Lessons Learned (cont’d)
Difficulties caused by the grass-roots
approach (cont’d)
Most resources are not dedicated to the
ApGrid Testbed. (though this is a common
problem for Grids)
There may be busy resources
Need grid level scheduler, fancy Grid reservation
system?
Lessons Learned (cont’d)
Some resources are not stable
example: If I call many RPCs, some of them
fails (but sometimes all will done)
not yet resolved
GT2? Ninf-G? OS? Hardware?
Other instability
System maintenance (incl. version up of
software) without notification
realized when the application would fail.
it worked well yesterday, but I’m not sure whether
it works today
But this is the Grid ☺
Relation to other international activities
Contribution to APAN and PRAGMA
APAN: Asia Pacific Advanced Network
Network people + application people + Grid people
Plan to reform ApGrid under APAN
PRAGMA: Pacific-Rim Application and Grid Middleware
Assembly
PRAGMA is focusing on applications
Provide ApGrid Testbed for their applications
Activities at the GGF
Production Grid Management RG
Draft a Case Study Document (ApGrid Testbed)
Groups in the Security Area
CAOPs (Grid PMA)
Discuss about the policy management
Grid Federation RG (1st BOF at GGF9)
Discuss federation of Grid
I’ll be a co-chair
Summary
Difficulties are caused by not technical
problems but sociological/political problems
Each site has its own policy
account management
firewalls
trusted CAs
…
Differences in interests / expertise
Application, middleware, networking, etc.
Differences in culture, language, etc.
Human interaction is very important
Summary (cont’d)
What has been done?
Resource sharing between more than 10 sites
(around 500cpus)
Use GT2 as a common software
Run Ninf-G applications
What hasn’t?
I could use, but it is difficult for others
I was given an account at each site by personal
communication
Formalize “how to use the Grid Testbed”
Provide documentation
Define ApGrid Policy for international collaboration
Keep the testbed stable
Tools for management
Browse information
CA/Cert. management
For more info
Home Page
Mailing Lists
http://www.apgrid.org/
Core Member ML
Tech. Contacts ML
(approved members)
core@apgrid.org
tech-contacts@apgrid.org
ML for discussion
(open for anyone)
discuss@apgrid.org