Zhuoan Jiao

A grid-enabled problem solving environment (PSE) for design optimisation within Matlab

The process of design search and optimisation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is computationally and data intensive, a problem well-suited to Grid computing. The Geodise toolkit is a suite of Grid-enabled design optimisation and search tools within the Matlab environment. The use of these tools by the engineer is facilitated by intelligent design advisers targeted initially at CFD. The role of remote computation and data access in constructing a Grid-enabled problem solving environment is discussed. The use of the Geodise toolkit for design optimisation from within the Matlab environment is considered with an exemplar problem.

Implementation of a grid-enabled problem solving environment in matlab

In many areas of design search and optimisation one needs to utilize Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods in order to obtain numerical solution of the flow field in and/or around a proposed design. From this solution measures of quality for the design may be calculated, which are required by optimisation methods. In large models the processing time for the CFD computatioas can very well be many orders of magnitude larger than the optimisation methods; and the overall optimisation process usually demands a combination of computational and database resources therefore this class of problems is well suited to Grid computing. The Geodise toolkit is a suite of tools for Grid-enabled parametric geometry generation, meshing, CFD analysis, design optimization and search, database, and notification tools within the Matlab environment. These grid services are presented to the design engineer as Matlab functions that conform to the usual syntax of Matlab. The use of the Geodise toolkit in Matlab introduces a flexible and Grid-enabled problem solving environment (PSE) for design search and optimisation. This PSE is illustrated here with an exemplar problem.

Delivering data management for engineers on the grid

We describe the design and implementation of a database toolkit for engineers, which has been incorporated into the Matlab environment, to help manage the large amount of data created in distributed applications. The toolkit is built using Grid and Web services technologies, and exchanges XML metadata between heterogeneous Web services, databases and clients using open standards. We show an application exemplar of how this toolkit may be used in a grid-enabled Computational Electromagnetics design search.

Databases, workflows and the Grid in a service oriented environment

As the Grid moves towards adopting a service-oriented architecture built on Web services, coupling between processes will rely on secure, reliable, and transacted messages and be supported by databases. We have built a generic toolkit targeted at design engineers, which provides convenient methods to access a grid-enabled repository. In this paper we report how we have developed it further, and integrated it into a workflow toolkit to support a range of activities that design engineers have previously attempted to perform by multiple ad-hoc methods in the workflows used to improve designs. It also presents opportunities for improving the process of design search in a variety of ways that would have been otherwise hard to implement. We show the potential of our grid-enabled data repository in the context of workflow management, engineering optimisation process monitoring and steering.

Grid services in action: grid enabled optimisation and design search

We are developing a Grid Enabled Optimisation and Design Search system (GEODISE). It offers grid-based access to a state-of-the-art collection of optimisation and design search tools, industrial strength analysis codes, and distributed computing and data resources.

On the use of semantic annotations for supporting provenance in grids

There has seen a strong demand for provenance in grid applications, which enables users to trace how a particular result has been arrived at by identifying the resources, configurations and execution settings. In this paper we analyses the requirements of provenance support and discusses the nature and characteristics of provenance data on the Grid. We define a new conception called augmented provenance that enhances conventional provenance data with extensive metadata and semantics. A hybrid approach is proposed for the creation and management of augmented provenance in which semantic annotation is used to generate semantic provenance data and the database management system is used for execution data management. The approach has been applied to a real world application, and tools and GUIs are developed to facilitate provenance management and exploitation.