Łukasz Dutka

PL-Grid: foundations and perspectives of national computing infrastructure

The Polish Grid Initiative commenced in 2009 as part of the PL-Grid project funded within the framework of the Innovative Economy Operational Programme. The main objective is to provision a persistent heterogeneous computational platform for the Polish scientific community with a unified interface, enabling easy access to the distributed large-scale computing infrastructure. The project establishes a countrywide computing platform which supports scientific research through integration of experimental data and results of advanced computer simulations carried out by geographically distributed computer infrastructure and teams. The solutions applied in setting up this e-infrastructure facilitate integration with other, similar platforms around the world. In this chapter the foundations of the PL-Grid architecture, a brief history of the project and its most important objectives are presented.

Formal Model for Contract Negotiation in Knowledge-Based Virtual Organizations

In this paper we propose a formal model which supports the process of setting up a Virtual Organization by means of allowing contract negotiation between parties pariticipating in such VO. The negotiated contract is used to configure the necessary Grid middleware components for the purpose of contract enforcement during the lifetime of the Virtual Organization. We present a brief overview of the framework and discuss in detail the formal model underlying the process of contract negotiation and how the ontological description of the domains related to given VO supports this process.

Polish computational research space for international scientific collaborations

The Polish Grid Initiative commenced in 2009 as part of the PL-Grid project funded under the framework of the Innovative Economy Operational Programme [1]. The main purpose of this Project is to provide the Polish scientific community with an IT basic platform making use of Grid computer clusters, enabling e-science research in various fields. The Project is establishing a country-wide computing platform, which supports scientific research through integration of experimental data and results of advanced computer simulations carried out by geographically-dispersed teams. The solutions applied in setting up this e-infrastructure will ensure integration with other, similar platforms around the world. In the paper some basic facts concerning the Project history are given, PL-Grid goals are described and several examples of innovative grid services and software as well as support procedures developed to-date are presented.

Onedata – A Step Forward towards Globalization of Data Access for Computing Infrastructures

Abstract To satisfy requirements of data globalization and high performance access in particular, we introduce the originally created onedata system which virtualizes storage systems provided by storage resource providers distributed globally. onedata introduces new data organization concepts together with providers’ cooperation procedures that involve use of Global Registry as a mediator. The most significant features include metadata synchronization and on-demand file transfer.

Metadata Organization and Management for Globalization of Data Access with Onedata

The Big Data revolution means that large amounts of data have not only to be stored, but also to be processed to unlock the potential of access to information and knowledge for scientific research. As a result, scientific communities require simple and convenient global access to data which is effective, secure and shareable. In this article we analyze how researchers use their data working in large scientific projects and show how their requirements may be satisfied with our solution called Onedata. Major technical mechanisms of metadata management and organization are described.

Uniform and Efficient Access to Data in Organizationally Distributed Environments

In this article, the authors present a solution to the problem of accessing data in organizationally distributed environments, such as Grids and Clouds, in a uniform and efficient manner. An overview of existing storage solutions is described, in particular high-performance filesystems and data management systems, with regard to the provided functionality, scalability and configuration elasticity. Next, a novel solution, called VeilFS, is described in terms of objectives to attain, its architecture and current implementation status. In particular, the mechanisms used for achieving a desired level of performance and fault-tolerance are discussed and preliminary overhead tests are presented.

Distributed Computing Instrastructure as a Tool for e-Science

It is now several years since scientists in Poland can use the resources of the distributed computing infrastructure – PLGrid. It is a flexible, large-scale e-infrastructure, which offers a homogeneous, easy to use access to organizationally distributed, heterogeneous hardware and software resources. It is built in accordance with good organizational and engineering practices, taking advantage of international experience in this field. Since the scientists need assistance and close collaboration with service providers, the e-infrastructure is relied on users’ requirements and needs coming from different scientific disciplines, being equipped with specific environments, solutions and services, suitable for various disciplines. All these tools help to lowering the barriers that hinder researchers to use the infrastructure.

Development of Domain-Specific Solutions Within the Polish Infrastructure for Advanced Scientific Research

The Polish Grid computing infrastructure was established during the PL-Grid project (2009–2012). The main purpose of this Project was to provide the Polish scientists with an IT basic platform, allowing them to conduct interdisciplinary research on a national scale, and giving them transparent access to international grid resources via international grid infrastructures. Currently, the infrastructure is maintained and extended within a follow-up PLGrid Plus project (2011–2014). Its main objective is to increase the potential of the Polish Science by providing necessary IT services for research teams in Poland, in line with European solutions. The paper presents several examples of the domain-specific computational environments, developed within the Project. For particular environments, specialized IT solutions are prepared, i.e. dedicated software implementation and infrastructure adaptation, suited for particular researchers groups’ demands.

Flexible component architecture for information web portals

In this paper a proposition of Component-Expert Architecture for designing information Web portals is presented. Taking advantage of the expert system approach, it introduces a sophisticated method of components management, allowing to reduce complication of software used to build the portals. Experience of practical implementation is reported.

Consistency Models for Global Scalable Data Access Services

Developing and deploying a global and scalable data access service is a challenging task. We assume that the globalization is achieved by creating and maintaining appropriate metadata while the scalability is achieved by limiting the number of entities taking part in keeping the metadata consistency. In this paper, we present different consistency and synchronization models for various metadata types chosen for implementation of global and scalable data access service.