Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure
Ukrainian Academic Grid (UAG) is presented as a powerful computing resource for fundamental and applied scientific research which are carried out at the NAS of Ukraine (NASU). Information on activity, structure, computational power and problems of UAG follows a short historical outlook. Contribution...
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Martynov, E. Svistunov, S. Zinovjev, G. 2013-03-13T10:47:54Z 2013-03-13T10:47:54Z 2009 Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure / E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev // Систем. дослідж. та інформ. технології. — 2009. — № 3. — С. 31–42. — Бібліогр.: 10 назв. — англ. 1681–6048 https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/42222 004.75 Ukrainian Academic Grid (UAG) is presented as a powerful computing resource for fundamental and applied scientific research which are carried out at the NAS of Ukraine (NASU). Information on activity, structure, computational power and problems of UAG follows a short historical outlook. Contribution of UAG to the Ukrainian National Grid Initiative (UNGI) is emphasized. Examples of a cooperation of NASU institutes with international grid projects and organizations, in particular, with WLCG, EGEE and EGI are presented. Prospects of UAG and UNGI activities in developing various Grid applications within various scientific areas are shown. Український академічний Грід (УАГ) є потужним ресурсом для фундаментальних і прикладних наукових досліджень, які ведуться в Національній академії наук України. Після стислого викладу історії УАГ представлено інформацію про структуру, обчислювальні потужності та актуальні проблеми в роботі академічного Гріда. Підкреслюється роль УАГ у побудові Українського національного Гріда. Наведено приклади співробітництва академічних інститутів з міжнародними Грід-проектами та організаціями, зокрема, з європейськими. Обговорюються перспективи розвитку академічного і національного Гріда у вирішенні наукових і прикладних завдань у різних сферах застосування Грід-технологій. Украинский академический Грид (УАГ) является мощным ресурсом для фундаментальных и прикладных научных исследований, которые ведутся в Национальной академии наук Украины. После краткого изложения истории УАГ представлена информация о структуре, вычислительных мощностях и актуальных проблемах в работе академического Грида. Подчеркнута роль УАГ в создании Украинского национального Грида. Приведены примеры сотрудничества академических институтов с международными Грид-проектами и организациями, в частности, европейскими. Обсуждаются перспективы развития академического и национального Грида в решении научных и прикладных задач в различных сферах применимости Грид-технологий. en Навчально-науковий комплекс "Інститут прикладного системного аналізу" НТУУ "КПІ" МОН та НАН України Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології Прогресивні інформаційні технології, високопродуктивні комп’ютерні системи Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure Академічний сегмент української Грід-інфраструктури Академический сегмент украинской Грид-ифраструктуры Article published earlier |
| institution |
Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
| collection |
DSpace DC |
| title |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure |
| spellingShingle |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure Martynov, E. Svistunov, S. Zinovjev, G. Прогресивні інформаційні технології, високопродуктивні комп’ютерні системи |
| title_short |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure |
| title_full |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure |
| title_fullStr |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure |
| title_sort |
academic segment of ukrainian grid infrastructure |
| author |
Martynov, E. Svistunov, S. Zinovjev, G. |
| author_facet |
Martynov, E. Svistunov, S. Zinovjev, G. |
| topic |
Прогресивні інформаційні технології, високопродуктивні комп’ютерні системи |
| topic_facet |
Прогресивні інформаційні технології, високопродуктивні комп’ютерні системи |
| publishDate |
2009 |
| language |
English |
| container_title |
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології |
| publisher |
Навчально-науковий комплекс "Інститут прикладного системного аналізу" НТУУ "КПІ" МОН та НАН України |
| format |
Article |
| title_alt |
Академічний сегмент української Грід-інфраструктури Академический сегмент украинской Грид-ифраструктуры |
| description |
Ukrainian Academic Grid (UAG) is presented as a powerful computing resource for fundamental and applied scientific research which are carried out at the NAS of Ukraine (NASU). Information on activity, structure, computational power and problems of UAG follows a short historical outlook. Contribution of UAG to the Ukrainian National Grid Initiative (UNGI) is emphasized. Examples of a cooperation of NASU institutes with international grid projects and organizations, in particular, with WLCG, EGEE and EGI are presented. Prospects of UAG and UNGI activities in developing various Grid applications within various scientific areas are shown.
Український академічний Грід (УАГ) є потужним ресурсом для фундаментальних і прикладних наукових досліджень, які ведуться в Національній академії наук України. Після стислого викладу історії УАГ представлено інформацію про структуру, обчислювальні потужності та актуальні проблеми в роботі академічного Гріда. Підкреслюється роль УАГ у побудові Українського національного Гріда. Наведено приклади співробітництва академічних інститутів з міжнародними Грід-проектами та організаціями, зокрема, з європейськими. Обговорюються перспективи розвитку академічного і національного Гріда у вирішенні наукових і прикладних завдань у різних сферах застосування Грід-технологій.
Украинский академический Грид (УАГ) является мощным ресурсом для фундаментальных и прикладных научных исследований, которые ведутся в Национальной академии наук Украины. После краткого изложения истории УАГ представлена информация о структуре, вычислительных мощностях и актуальных проблемах в работе академического Грида. Подчеркнута роль УАГ в создании Украинского национального Грида. Приведены примеры сотрудничества академических институтов с международными Грид-проектами и организациями, в частности, европейскими. Обсуждаются перспективы развития академического и национального Грида в решении научных и прикладных задач в различных сферах применимости Грид-технологий.
|
| issn |
1681–6048 |
| url |
https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/42222 |
| citation_txt |
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure / E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev // Систем. дослідж. та інформ. технології. — 2009. — № 3. — С. 31–42. — Бібліогр.: 10 назв. — англ. |
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© E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev, 2009
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології, 2009, № 3 31
УДК 004.75
ACADEMIC SEGMENT OF UKRAINIAN GRID
INFRASTRUCTURE
E. MARTYNOV, S. SVISTUNOV, G. ZINOVJEV
Ukrainian Academic Grid (UAG) is presented as a powerful computing resource for
fundamental and applied scientific research which are carried out at the NAS of
Ukraine (NASU). Information on activity, structure, computational power and prob-
lems of UAG follows a short historical outlook. Contribution of UAG to the Ukrain-
ian National Grid Initiative (UNGI) is emphasized. Examples of a cooperation of
NASU institutes with international grid projects and organizations, in particular,
with WLCG, EGEE and EGI are presented. Prospects of UAG and UNGI activities
in developing various Grid applications within various scientific areas are shown.
INTRODUCTION
An area of information-computing technologies has been fundamentally modified
afterwards the basic idea of the spatially distributed computing appeared in the
eighties of the last century. Grid technologies occupied an important unless the
most quickly progressing place in this area. Their principles have been logically
and adequately formulated by I. Foster and C. Kesselman [1]. It is the authors’s
opinion that “A computational grid is a hardware and software infrastructure that
provides dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end
computational capabilities”. In other words the grid looks to users like one pow-
erful computer with unlimited resources (processors, RAM, storages etc.).
The impetuous development of grid technologies in the world is caused by
the increasing complexity of computational problems in the various human activi-
ties, on the one hand, and by the fast progress of computer material resources and
the perfect element resources of modern computers, on the other one. An increase
of the computing capacity and the Internet links getting cheaper rate play almost a
key role in this process inasmuch as grid uses the Internet as data communications
medium.
From the outset grid technologies have been mainly applied for high energy
physics. Now they have already penetrated in
the various fundamental and applied sciences
(from physics and astrophysics till Earth sci-
ences and biomedical ones) and are steadily
advancing in industry, economics and social
life. It is timely to refer to the analysis done by
the INSIGHT Research Corporation in 2006
[2]. According to published thesis “Grid Com-
puting: A Vertical Market Perspective 2006-
2011” the investment to the Grid technologies
will increase from 1.84 billion in 2006 to 24.52
billion in 2011 (fig. 1).
1.84 3.89
8.51
12.21
19.28
24.52
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
Fig. 1. Funds for developing Grid
in the world (in billion dollars)
E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev
ISSN 1681–6048 System Research & Information Technologies, 2009, № 3 32
Developing the grid technologies, building the national and international
grid infrastructures is naturally fitting in the objective globalization processes in
economics, sciences and culture. The international associations and projects are
playing now an increasingly appreciable role in sciences and economics. More-
over, it is a challenge for any country to realize independently some research pro-
jects such as program of studying a microcosm using the most powerful collider
of elementary particles and nuclei — LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN.
These projects require quite serious data-processing support which grid can sat-
isfy.
Nowadays there is none of highly developed countries which reject an idea
to build up a proper grid network. We can state with assurance a country that has
not grid infrastructure and is not drawn into the world Grid community could not
even pretend to be a developed one. Thus, a development and application of Grid
technologies for the daily social life becomes a strategic trend for each state
which is anxious about scientific, economic and social progress.
GRID TECHNOLOGIES AND GRID INFRASTRUCTURE
From the practical view point the grid is a service for sharing spatially distributed
computer systems into one vast computing resource to provide more efficient use
of computing resources available and to solve the problems which need the seri-
ous computing power. Functionally the grid infrastructure has to ensure:
• Effective intercommunication of heterogeneous computers or com-
puter systems.
• HPC — high-performance computing. Grid allows to share resources
for performing great computations (for example, data processing from LHC at
CERN), which cannot be done using an individual computer system.
• Processing of huge data array, which can be stored in different remote
memory. These calculations must usually occur with extra load conditions in
computing and communication resources.
• Support and operational compatibility of different virtual organiza-
tions (VOs). Grid has to support a cooperative activity of the real VOs members
and to provide, as required, the intercommunication of different VOs through the
middleware.
To realize the functions listed above grid as a data processing infrastructure
must have three principal components:
1) clusters or single computers (proper computing and operating resources);
2) Internet high-speed channels, (Internet HSC);
3) middleware.
The necessity to use the grid technologies in the National Academy of Sci-
ences of Ukraine (NASU) mainly evolves from recent research areas, appearance
of new computational problems with unexampled high demands to computation
and data processing capacity, computation speed as well. These problems arise,
for example, in high energy physics and astrophysics, biophysics and biology,
science of materials, Earth sciences and many others, both fundamental and ap-
plied studies. As it was proved grid technologies can be installed (with minimal
financial costs) into a daily practice of institute regardless of its geographical lo-
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології, 2009, № 3 33
cation in such a way that any researcher gains the access to the computational re-
sources even though his institute does not have such resources.
The factors listed above have been counted for working up the academic grid
project. The particular qualities and characteristics of grid technologies as well as
the building of grid systems utilizing an experience of other countries and numer-
ous grid projects have been taken into account. The efforts were made to avoid
the subsequent difficulties encountered in building the branched grid infrastruc-
ture of NASU and on the whole in Ukraine. First of all, it concerns the limited
funding which forces to formulate a certain strategy and tactics; secondly, the de-
ficiency of qualified specialists which know about the grid technologies (in par-
ticular, among the specialists who does not work with the information discipline).
HISTORY OF GRID INFRASTRUCTURE CREATION IN NASU
The chronology of facts and events related to the creation of the first Ukrainian
grid infrastructure clearly demonstrates how these problems were overcome by
the initiators of grid infrastructure realization in Ukraine.
While computational clusters were created since 1999 (Glushkov Institute of
Cibernetics, NASU (Kiev), Kiev National University, Institute of Condensed Sys-
tems, NASU (Lviv), State Scientific Institution “Monocristal”, NASU (Kharkiv)
the first grid site appeared in Ukraine at 2004. It was created by the group of
physicists from National Scientific Center “Kharkov Institute of Physics and
Technology”. The computer cluster was built in the framework of collaboration
with Joint Institute of Nuclear Researches (JINR, Dubna, Russia) and participa-
tion in CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at LHC which is one of the
large experiments planned to run at CERN (Geneva, Switzerland).
The practical steps in realization of more or less systematic approach creat-
ing grid system in the country were made at 2005 only.
During several last years the scientists of the Bogolyubov Institute for Theo-
retical Physics of NASU were discussing the problems of constructing the power-
ful computing capacities necessary for an analysis of experimental data in high
energy physics at the Ukrainian academic Institutes and Universities. Eventually
at the end of 2005 the consensus has been reached that the Ukrainian community
will try to contribute at CERN not only to physics but to the computing support of
the future LHC experiments. Such a collaboration will provide, first of all, a di-
rect access to the new data necessary for the theorists to develop and verify new
physical ideas and, secondly, will help to the Ukrainian physicists “to be in the
centre of events” due to the grid possibilities maintaining the close professional
contacts with CERN which is a world leading research organization.
It has been underlined that the grid technology application is an extremely
advanced method not only for high energy physics, but it can help to solve vari-
ous fundamental and practical high computational problems in many branches of
fundamental research. It opens the new horizons in the research process as well
and activates the international cooperation in different human activities. That was
a strong motivation for the initiators to be targeted on creating the grid infrastruc-
ture which could be used by the NASU scientists and specialists from other insti-
tutions operating with high computational problems.
E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev
ISSN 1681–6048 System Research & Information Technologies, 2009, № 3 34
The conception of grid development and its application in BITP has been
unambiguously supported by the director of Institute, Academician A. Zagorodny.
At that time there was not high speed channel in the Institute for Theoretical
Physics and the prototype grid site of 2 servers has been created in Computer
Center of Taras Shevchenko Kiev National University (CC KNU). Due to a tight
collaboration of BITP and ALICE Collaboration (A Large Ion Collider Experi-
ment) [3] the grid site has been certified by AliEn-grid (ALICE-Enviroment-grid)
[4] (the Grid organization for providing the computing resource for the ALICE
experiment at CERN).
In June 2005 the session of Coordinating Board for Informatics of NASU
was held at BITP. The project to create the grid computer cluster at BITP has
been comprehensively discussed and approved. The practical work was trigged up
with quite clear prospects. At the end of 2005 the computer cluster of 10 nods
(double processors) has been built and the grid middleware has been installed.
Several events which took place on April 2006 have provided the progress in
the grid development at BITP and NASU. The Institute received the fiber-optic
channel with capacity 2 Mb/s and an access to the academic Internet network –
UARNET. The first grid tasks which had come to the cluster from CERN and the
other AliEn-grid Institutes were quickly elaborated.
On April 25 the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has been offi-
cially affiliated to the WLCG (Worldwide LHC Computing Grid [5]) organization
which has to coordinate the computer (Grid) support for LHC experiments. By
April 2006 Conception of the Grid infrastructure development in Ukraine has
been approved by the NASU Presidium. At the end of 2006 new grid clusters
have been built in five institutes of NASU and in December the first prototype
grid system of 2 clusters (BITP and KNU) has been put into operation to process
grid network using NorduGrid middleware. Basing on this gained experience it
became possible already in April 2007 to combine clusters of six NASU Institutes
into the first Ukrainian grid segment.
According to the Program “Grid technologies development and clustering in
NASU” it was proposed to solve the main tasks of the Program in 3 phases:
First phase: clustering, pushing forward a collaboration of the Ukrainian
scientists in the LHC projects at CERN, propagating an idea of the NASU official
participation in WLCG.
Second phase: creation of the first grid segment at NASU and increasing a
number of clusters.
Third phase: establishing the Ukrainian Academic Grid (UAG) and present-
ing UAG as a coordinating center, providing an official participation of NASU in
the international (especially European) Grid organizations and projects, continu-
ing the cluster creation.
Tasks of these three phases are practically realized up to now. Ukrainian
Academic Grid is successfully functioning.
UKRAINIAN ACADEMIC GRID
Ukrainian Academic Grid (UAG) is a grid infrastructure to share the computer
resources of the NASU institutes and universities as well.
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології, 2009, № 3 35
The principal tasks of the UAG is to develop the distributed computings and
grid technologies to advance computationally intensive fundamental and applied
studies NASU. Besides, UAG has to ensure a participation of the Ukrainian
scientists in various topical international grid projects.
Structure and organizational management of the UAG
It is well known that grid system is based on three principal elements: computer
resources (clusters), high-speed and reliable access of resources to Internet and
middleware which unifies these resources into one computer system.
Though the middleware was available even at the beginning of the grid
infrastructure creation the clusters and fiber-optic network of NASU were
simultaneously built with the grid facilities system development.
The well-known Beowulf idea (www.beowulf.org) as a conceptual model for
the computer cluster construction was selected and adopted for realization in
NASU. This conception is based on using servers with standard PC architecture,
distributed main storage and Gigabit Ethernet technology which unifies computer
system. So, all Grid clusters in NASU are built with x86, x86_64 architecture,
two- (four-) processor servers of 1-4 GB main storage and 36-500 GB HDD. To
provide the inter-server exchange 1GB/s switchers have been used and only in
some clusters the InfiniBand is exploited.
At present the UAG shares resources (more than 2500 CPU and about 300
TB of disk memory) of the next organizations (fig. 2).
It should be emphasized that the footprint on hard disks of computer nodes is
used for operating system (loading from local disks), program packages and tem-
porary files but it is inaccessible to store the user’s files. Each cluster has its disk
array to store programs, user’s data and information of common use. A free dis-
tributed operational system Linux of various modifications (Scientific Linux
2.6.9, Fedora 2.6, CentOS-4.6) on clusters is installed and the task management
system OpenPBS is used to start tasks and allocate the cluster utilization.
The idea to enlarge the grid infrastructure user base via the so-called access
grid platforms, i.e. the grid clusters with “minimal configuration”, has been con-
ceived realizing the NASU Program. Such a cluster holds the control server with
installed middleware and minimal computing resource. Working permanently in
the conditions of limited funding a system of the access grid platforms proposed
and developed in the NASU grid infrastructure allows the specialists of Institutes
where there is no an operable cluster to use the academic grid full profile. A local
resource broker using available network resources distributes the tasks among the
grid infrastructure clusters as the computing requests (small problems require a
hands-on operation and large-scale ones are directed to more powerful clusters).
With the funds available any mini cluster can be easily is easily extended to the
full scale cluster. This policy makes it possible to train system administrators for
the work with more power clusters.
The high-speed and reliable access channel to Internet networking is one of
the necessary conditions at the grid infrastructure building. Ukrainian Academic
and Research Network (UARNET) has built the infrastructure which is capable to
unify the academic institutions with fiber-optic channels (capacity 100 Mb/s).
In the Institute for Theoretical Physics which is responsible for the academic
grid program running the UAG web site (http://uag.bitp.grid.ua) has been de-
signed whereat the information on Grid technologies and Grid development over
the world, news and publications can be found.
E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev
ISSN 1681–6048 System Research & Information Technologies, 2009, № 3 36
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Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології, 2009, № 3 37
Today UAG is operating under the ARC NorduGrid middleware. However
in the European Grid projects (WLCG, EGEE [6], EGI [7]) the gLite middleware
is recommended as one the key elements. Then it is clear the task to install gLite
instead (or in parallel) of ARC middleware in the NASU Grid infrastructure be-
comes a work of the first priority.
To solve the “Interoperability” and “Interoperate” problems the software
product GridWay [8] has been chosen as an adapter. More details about this activ-
ity in UAG are given in the [9,10].
Fundamental and applied tasks to be solved in UAG
First of all, we consider the NASU grid infrastructure both as a supporting
equipment for solving the fundamental and applied problems and as a ground
wherein the grid technology methods are proved in accomplishment of various
tasks. These methods could and should be used then in the national grid infra-
structure whose the function is far wider than the research data computing. Never-
theless, below it is an appropriate list of the scientific areas where new UAG fa-
cilities have been already used.
High energy physics
LHC (CERN) experimental data processing, their analysis and comparison
to the theoretical results and phenomenological models aiming the full scale par-
ticipation of the Ukrainian institutes in the ALICE experiments (BITP, KNU, IC,
KIPT, ISMA, NTU KPI) and CMS ones (KIPT).
Astrophysics and astronomy
• Dynamical computing of an evolution of the star concentration in the
Galaxy external field. The hydrodynamic modeling of collision and fragmentation
of the molecular clouds. Analysis of N-body algorithm and parallel computing on
the GRAPE clusters. Cooperation with AstroGrid-D (MAO).
• Theoretical analysis and the observation processing of primary, roentgen
and gamma radiation data which are obtained from the satellite telescopes
INTEGRAL, SWIFT and others (BITP, KNU, MAO).
• Creation and formation of VIRGO – VIRtual Gamma and Roentgen Ob-
servatory (BITP, KNU).
• Development of nuclei activity models of Galaxy and star concentrations.
Testing the dark matter and dark energy models. Collaboration with Lausanne and
Geneva universities (BITP, GAO).
Biophysics and biology
• Computing of thermodynamic characteristics, infrared and electron spec-
tra of sputter DNA fragments. Study of bionanohybrid system structures com-
posed by DNA and RNA of different sequence (ILTPE, IC).
• Molecular dynamic computing of Fts-Z-protein systems with the low-
molecular associations (ICBGE).
• Computer simulation of the spatial structure and molecular dynamics of
cytokine-tyrosine-RNA synthetase (IMBG).
Nanotechnologies
• Computing of nanostructure oxides which seem to be perspective high-
temperature superconductors, as well as physical characteristics of the DNA
fragment with transition metal ions which could be good nano-conductors.
E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev
ISSN 1681–6048 System Research & Information Technologies, 2009, № 3 38
• Computing of structures and interaction energy of bio-nano-hybrids on
basis of the single-shell carbon nano-tubes with the various bio-objects (ILTPE,
IMP, IC).
Environment monitoring
• Weather forecast parameters on the Ukrainian terrain based on the com-
puter simulation and satellite data. Estimate of biodiversity as ecologic parameter
on Ukrainian terrain (ISR, IC).
• Development of GEO-UA information infrastructure (ISR).
Structuring UAG
The future development of grid technologies in NASU should be focused on their
application in the specific research. There are three directions for creating and
using the grid technologies which have to be applied in the daily research work in
the near future:
• work out new packages for computing on one multiprocessor cluster and
on several various distributed clusters as well;
• adapt the relevant middleware for parallel processing;
• use the developed and free distributed license middleware which has been
already tested in domestic and foreign institutions.
It is well-known fact there are a lot of highly-qualified specialists in Ukraine
and in NASU, in particular, which are able to resolve the problems of this type.
There is a need to manage and provide them with the financial and material re-
sources as well as the cooperation between the computer specialists and physi-
cists, chemists, biologists, engineers and others who are interested in the Grid ap-
plications and feel this cooperation will be fruitful.
The strategic emphasis in development of UAG should be primarily placed
on the creation of such a system which is based on the power supercomputer cen-
tres allowing the distributed parallel computing with using ten or even hundred
processors. Then any academic institution in Ukraine or research group could
have a required time for computing and the facilities of these centers could be
optimally used with the grid technology advantages. The world experience, in
particular, demonstrates a prospect of such an approach. At the same time there is
a need to increase a quantity of the grid sites in the NASU institutes in order to
more and more scientists could have an access to the large computing resources.
It is essential to realize that the grid infrastructure with a lot of grid sites can
not be merely global computational resources with minimal management. At 2009
UAG has 22 powerful grid clusters and the access grid network platforms. In the
world practice examples the grid infrastructure organizations abound within the
big projects which consolidate the institutes and laboratories of many countries as
well as within the national projects for the countries working separately.
According to the WLCG scheme the infrastructure of UAG should be built
as three-level system in respect to an organization and management:
First level: Basic Coordinating Centre (BCC) which governs UAG mainly
through the regional centres.
Second level: Regional Operating Centres (ROC) which coordinate the
activity of grid sites (a Grid site (GS) is a grid cluster or an access platform) in
regions.
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології, 2009, № 3 39
Third level: Separate grid sites (institutes) or minimal grid network access
platforms which belong, as a rule, to any virtual organization (VO). VO temporar-
ily joins institutes (not necessarily from the same region) of common scientific
interests to solve a problem.
This is ensured that due to the large performance of grid infrastructure opti-
mized, its stability and reliability are controlled, and the workload of some of its
elements is governed. Basic coordination center of NASU consists of teams
which provide such a performance.
As to the grid technology application for solving various research problems
and tasks UAG has to unify the special virtual organizations which can be both
permanent and temporary as well as to enter large international unions and projects.
The principal BCC teams and their functions are as follows.
Research and analytical team is to work out and to confirm the BCC activ-
ity, research projects on grid technology application in the different fields, to ana-
lyze perspective trends of research in the grid technologies and their realization,
to make the expert evaluation of new propositions and projects for development
and the grid technology applications.
Team of international contacts. The key task of this team is in the devel-
opment of cooperation with the international organizations and the grid projects in
the international collaboration of the UAG participants. The representatives of
Regional Operating Centers (ROCs) and Resource Centers of Virtual Organiza-
tions (RCVOs) are getting to draw up a plan of the team.
Maintenance team. The team has to assist to the administrators of computer
clusters in an installation of system-wide software and to provide computer secu-
rity, as well as to maitain the working grid nodes. The team coordinator maintains
the permanent contact with corresponding specialists of ROC and RCVO, the sys-
tem administrators and security administrators of each local grid site.
Software support team is to assist administrators of computer clusters in
installation of middleware on new clusters and to support the regular and qualita-
tive link with all grid nodes. Moreover, the team experts are responsible for task
analysis of the whole grid system, new middleware installation, and compatibility
of application software with middleware as well. The team has to know all the
answers to any problems appearing in the grid network of NASU.
User support team. Each ROC and grid site must have a portal which
should be allocated to the practical directives teaching how anyone might be in-
volved in the Ukranian grid activity and how the process of getting a certificate
for virtual organization or grid node, or individual user could be realized. Each
user can send a test task to be solved and obtain results using web-site. Web-site
has to contain the information concerning the structure of national grid, Internet
references to the grid activity documentations and web-sites of each grid site of
the national grid as well as reference sources on principal facilities of grid tech-
nologies, international grid projects and virtual organizations, announcements on
the grid seminars and conferences.
Educating and training centre is to organize the educational process on
theoretical and practical basis of the grid technology applications. Virtual educa-
tional grid is created on the basis of the display classrooms, the existing and fu-
ture centers should be timely equipped. The individual education programs to
ROC and RCVO administrators, system administrators of Grid clusters and users
E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev
ISSN 1681–6048 System Research & Information Technologies, 2009, № 3 40
should be worked out. Development of educational programs, seminars and or-
ganization of continual education should be fulfilled by the experts of KNU and
KPI.
The structure of Regional Operating Centres is a similar but the centers are
empowered by a less number of functions.
Cooperation with Ukrainian Institutes behind NASU
At the very beginning the NASU researchers are working in full cooperation with
the Universities and Institutes behind the NASU structure. Today Higher Schools
of the Ministry of Education and Sciences have the good possibilities to teach the
IT-specialists, some of them possess the considerable computational resources.
They can and must make an essential contribution to the Grid technology devel-
opment in Ukraine and creation of national wide branched Grid infrastructure.
Scientific and technological project “Creation of National Grid Infrastructure
for Research Support” is fulfilling today in Ukraine along with grid project of
NASU (BITP is a basic organization with 20 participants). This project was ap-
proved by the Ministry of Education and Sciences (MES) to be accomplished in
2007-2008 as a part of the State Program “Information and Communication
Technologies in Education and Science”. The program provides the formation of
the national Grid infrastructure, the creation of Certificate Centre, the mainte-
nance of Ukrainian international data center. NTU KPI is a leading organization
in this project and 7 universities and institutions of MES are the contracting par-
ties. It should be mentioned that NASU becomes the contracting party as well.
Taking into account that both projects have similar purposes the MES and
NASU started to collaborate. BITP and NTU KPI made an agreement to create
the Ukrainian Grid Association which, in accordance to the EGI recommenda-
tions, was termed as Ukrainian National Grid Initiative (UNGI). The structure of
UNGI was strictly outlined and documented, the immediate and advanced plans
which should be realized after accepting and approval the State Program were
discussed and fixed. The formal procedure of association registration is very close
to be completed now.
It should be emphasized that the active work is now underway on the grid
technologies application in the medical institutions. The program of collaboration
between the NASU and Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine and some big
medical centers is successfully working. The NASU is ready to aid and to grant
the computational resources for using the gggrid technologies in medical practice
in the framework of pilot projects.
International cooperation of UAG
Grid may be considered as a new reinforced instrument for scientific and techno-
logical international cooperation. Grid becomes one of the principal factors and
locomotives of the globalization process. Science has always an international na-
ture but at the end of previous century because of the fight with the background of
economic globalization the proper attention to developing the cooperation princi-
ples in the science management was not given in necessary extent. Nevertheless,
due to Internet and new scientific projects (for example, Space exploration, the
largest colliders in CERN and USA, European project of thermonuclear reactor
ITER etc.) the tasks of world science integration have been brought to the fore-
Academic segment of Ukrainian Grid infrastructure
Системні дослідження та інформаційні технології, 2009, № 3 41
front. New international project called the World Grid could be realized by creat-
ing the national and big international grid projects (WLCG, EGEE, GLORIAD,
TERAGRID and others). Realizing a stable character of unification tendency and
availability of this process in the country the organizers of UAG pay the special
efforts to the integration and consolidation of the Ukrainian Grid into the interna-
tional grid community.
Today the Ukrainian experts are ready to learn the great experience their for-
eign colleagues, however, they have a lot of achievements as well which could be
very practical for the international community of the Grid users. Below we list
new trends and activities which as we believe are the quite promising for future
cooperation and will provide both sides with a steady progress of the grid tech-
nologies.
Ukraine was registered as a non-contracting participant in the EGEE project
in 2007. It was planned that the Ukrainian specialists should work out the subject
of grid applications (e.g. in high energy physics, astrophysics, life science, earth
science) and focus their efforts on education and knowledge propagation of grid
and distribution of the grid technologies into medicine and industry.
In May 2007 Ukraine signed Memorandum of Understanding about the par-
ticipation in EGI. The spectrum of tasks which are of interest for the Ukrainian
experts corresponds quite well to the activity which was declared in EGEE.
Starting on April 2006 NASU is a member of the WLCG collaboration. Sev-
eral academic institutes put their computational resources for common work in
WLCG. The researchers of BITP and KIPT accomplish the theoretical and phe-
nomenological tasks together with the technical preparations for the future work
in the LHC experiments.
The researchers of the Institute of Space Researches of NASU and of
National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU) in cooperation with their Chinese
colleagues are fruitfully developing and use the grid technologies in the satellite
monitoring of Earth surface and water.
The agreement about the joint investigations and cluster computing with
GRAPE-cards in the framework of German AstroGrid-D project has been signed
by MAO. In the Institutes of biological investigations the negotiations with
colleagues of the Western countries about the common projects within the
specific VOs are carrying on.
There are no doubts that the international relations of UAG, its collaboration
in the grid projects with experts of many countries will be considerably extended
and intensified.
PROBLEMS IN UAG
Creating the UAG basic infrastructure we gained the practical experience both in
development of clusters and in management of cooperation between the various
NASU institutes in the Grid activity. Now we understand better what should be
done to guarantee an appreciable progress of computing constituent not only in
NASU but in Ukraine, too.
At the same time we met some problems which limit the grid technology dis-
tribution, for example:
1. Lack of information on new computational technologies in the scien-
tific community. Institutions of informatics should focus more attention on ex-
tending the knowledge about these technologies in all academic sub-divisions.
E. Martynov, S. Svistunov, G. Zinovjev
ISSN 1681–6048 System Research & Information Technologies, 2009, № 3 42
2. Shortage of the qualified personnel. First, it occurs that the local net-
works (if they are present) and primary output to Internet in the NASU Institutes
are mainly maintained by the enthusiasts who are the researchers, but not com-
puter specialists. Secondly, even if there is a qualified system administrator in an
Institute (usually a young scientist without scientific degree) his salary is very
scanty because of the academic regulations of the labour remuneration.
3. Scarcity of the IT specialists which understand properly the principles of
grid technologies. The world tendency demonstrates the widespread adoption of
grid in various human activities, and so there is an urgent need to train students of
the computer science.
4. Lack of high speed Internet links in many institutes of NASU (in non-
academic institutions, especially in regional ones). With a channel capacity
growth the traffic cost rapidly increases and so there are no adequate financing in
the Institutes to provide the channel capacity required by grid.
SUMMARY
Despite all difficulties and problems in developing of grid technologies in NASU
the background of the widest application of grid technologies in Ukraine has been
provided. There is a good reason to believe that grid exists and operates in
Ukraine, the collaboration with international grid community is intensified and
Ukrainian National Grid will be built with joint efforts and occupy a fitting place
in the world grid infrastructure.
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4. http://pcalimonitor.cern.ch/map.jsp.
5. http://lcg.web.cern.ch/LCG/.
6. http://www.eu-egee.org/.
7. http://web.eu-egi.eu/.
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Received 12.03.2009
From the Editorial Board: the article corresponds completely to submitted
manuscript.
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