Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2004-3 (VOL.55, NO.2)

Special Issue : Grid Computing

• Fujitsu's Activities in Grid Computing

Fujitsu has actively carried out research and development of Grid Computing technology, which is a new IT (Information Technology) trend. Initially, Fujitsu participated in scientific computation projects. Then, after Grid Computing technology began to mature, Fujitsu's R&D was expanded to include business applications of Grid technology. For Grid technology to become as widespread as Internet technology, interoperability and hence standardization is extremely important. We have made positive contributions to the standardization of Grid Computing technology. Particularly, we hold several key posts in the Global Grid Forum, which is the premier standard-setting organization for Grid technology, and we are promoting the establishment of important standard specifications. This paper describes the results of Grid Computing projects that Fujitsu has been engaged in, current technological development activities, and the technical fields that are expected to become significant in the future.

• What is Grid Computing?

• Grid Computing Empowers Management

Grid Computing increases business agility. It enables management to fully enjoy the fruits of recent remarkable progress in information technology (IT) and offers management a much greater degree of flexibility. Grid Computing technology is already being used in various industrial fields as an innovative approach to the use of IT resources. This paper first describes how Grid Computing impacts management in terms of business opportunity, business risk, and cost structure. Next, it looks at business applications in various categories, describing some individual case studies. Finally, this paper describes the challenges and prospects of Grid Computing in business applications in the following areas: integration of Grid Computing in Web Services, business process integration on the Web, and utility computing as a social infrastructure.

• Grid Computing Technology as a Basis of TRIOLE Infrastructure

"TRIOLE" is Fujitsu's vision of an IT infrastructure for achieving business growth and expansion, rapid system development, and reliable systems with lower total cost of ownership to meet today's social and corporate needs. TRIOLE refines the servers, storages, networks, and middleware through autonomy, virtualization, and integration to create an IT infrastructure for sustaining reliable systems within the rapidly changing business environment. This paper introduces the evolving TRIOLE concept and "SystemwalkerV11", which is based on the well-known system management software, "Systemwalker", and has been enhanced with the latest features for virtualization, visualization, and autonomy of an IT infrastructure.

• Overview of Japanese National Research Grid Initiative (NAREGI) Project

The Japanese National Research Grid Initiative (NAREGI) is a 5-year project spanning the period 2003 to 2007. The goals of the project are to 1) conduct R&D on Grid middleware to be deployed in future national-scale Grids that interconnect large numbers of universities, research labs, etc., 2) Grid-enable a specific target application, in this case nano-science, to prove the usefulness of Grids in future industrial applications, and 3) perform experimental deployment of 100 TFLOPS-scale Grids based on the middleware and Grid-enabled applications that have been constructed. The National Institute of Informatics (in charge of Grid middleware R&D), the Institute for Molecular Science (in charge of Grid-enabling nano-science applications), major universities, and vendors will actively participate in this project by using SuperSINET, which is an all-optical 10 Gbps and beyond backbone network for academic research. This paper outlines the NAREGI project.

• Virtual Laboratory Environment Construction by ITBL Project

The Information Technology Based Laboratory (ITBL) project is being promoted mainly by six research institutions as part of the e-Japan Priority Policy Program. The aim of this project is to construct a virtual laboratory environment that enables researchers to share the intellectual resources (e.g., supercomputers, software programs, and data) owned by the research institutions and supports researchers' collaborative studies. The Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute is developing a software system for the ITBL system infrastructure to realize a virtual laboratory environment. This software system will provide authentication and parallel-distributed communication functions to connect supercomputers, a job execution support function to use the supercomputers, and a community function to support communications among researchers. This paper describes the software system for the ITBL system infrastructure and the quantum bioinformatics and numerical environmental systems that are being developed as applications.

• Virtualized Collaboration Environment with 3D Images: VizGrid

Collaboration environments for joint research between researchers working in different fields and different countries have become more important in recent years, because the borders between fields have become increasingly fuzzy. VizGrid is a national joint-project between universities and Fujitsu that was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In this project, we are developing a high-quality, collaboration environment with three-dimensional (3D) images for remotely located researchers. Three-dimensional images are familiar, can be understood intuitively, and express ideas in a more natural way than words or 2D images. The VizGrid project is developing a communication technology, called "Volume Communication," for generating, transferring, displaying, and retrieving 3D images. The remote collaboration environment is constructed using this technology. Experiments will be conducted to evaluate the environment's effects in medical services provided at medical universities. This paper gives an overview of VizGrid and the collaboration environment. It also describes some new related technologies that are under development.

• CAD-Grid System for Accelerating Product Development

Recently, there have been demands for greater functional diversity and higher performance in the information technology (IT) infrastructure and mobile communication products. As a result, the complexity and scale of product design in the product development phase have increased. In addition, development periods need to be reduced so products can be marketed sooner. These requirements have rapidly increased the need to efficiently simulate and analyze in order to achieve optimum designs and verification. Also, grid computing technology is coming into practical use as a new way of using geographically distributed computer resources connected to a network. This technology is based on advances achieved in high-performance computing and broadband networking. The authors have constructed the "CAD-Grid" grid computing system to quickly perform computationally intense simulations in the product development phase. This system has been used to simulate a mobile communication system and confirm its effects. This paper describes the grid computing environment of CAD-Grid, its structure, the system simulation to which CAD-Grid was applied, and the application results. This paper also describes the future development plan for the CAD-Grid system.

• PIV Web Laboratory Using Grid Technology

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is an experimental method of researching fluids that is employed in the fields of automobiles, aviation, civil engineering, and medicine as the technology to complement computer simulation. The advances made in such optical technologies as laser beams and CCD cameras have made three-dimensional analysis of the flow field possible. However, three-dimensional analysis requires a high-performance computer, large-capacity storage, and a visualization engine. Accordingly, we have developed the "PIV Web Laboratory" for researchers studying fluid by using PIV as the Problem Solving Environment (PSE) system that satisfies such fluid analysis requirements. This system is based on UNICORE Grid middleware, and has multi-job management and three-dimensional remote visualization functions. We used this system to analyze the flow field on the delta wing, and created a collaborative research environment where many users can manipulate visualization results simultaneously by remote control.

• Construction of Japanese Virtual Observatory (JVO)

Large amounts of high-quality astronomical data are obtained from the Subaru Telescope and other observatories located throughout the world, and this data is stored in worldwide locations. It is now more important than ever to have an observational database that enables astronomers to search for and collect valuable astronomical data from this vast collection and perform research through statistical analysis. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has therefore started construction of a system called the Japanese Virtual Observatory (JVO) that will connect these observational databases via high-speed networks so they can be used collectively as a single virtual data archive. Fujitsu is collaborating with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in the development of the prototype system. To build the JVO, a virtual integrated environment for the distributed data will be required. To achieve this, three conditions must be considered: 1) construction of a virtual data storage system, 2) efficient use of the vast amount of distributed data, and 3) the fragileness of the distributed environment. This paper describes and evaluates the JVO prototype constructed using data grid technology to ascertain the feasibility of a virtual integrated environment for the distributed data.

• Business Grid Computing Project

Recently, there has been a large increase in the amount of e-business being conducted around the world. As a result, the business cycle from planning to development and operation is becoming shorter. In line with this trend, private companies and public institutions have found it necessary to construct and manage reliable and flexible application systems at low cost. The Business Grid Computing Project (BizGrid project) is striving to integrate the virtualization, autonomic control, and unified management of IT (Information Technology) resources to develop Grid Computing technology to address these business requirements. This project is also promoting international standardization of the technology to improve interoperability of Grid systems. BizGrid is based on the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA), which is a next-generation standard architecture based on the concepts of conventional Grid technology and Web services. This paper describes the technology development and standardization activities being implemented in the BizGrid project.

• Grid Middleware for Effectively Using Computing Resources: CyberGRIP

Various research and development activities regarding grid computing technology have recently been promoted. This technology integrates heterogeneous computing resources that are geographically dispersed and virtualizes them as a single computer system. However, there have been very few reports in the business world about grid computing becoming successful or practical because most grid computing research is carried out in government science projects. Fujitsu has developed CyberGRIP, which is a grid middleware system for applying grid computing to practical corporate simulations and verifying the effectiveness of grid computing. This paper clarifies the needs and problems of these corporate simulations and describes how CyberGRIP is solving the problems. This paper also describes in-house verification using the CAD-Grid system.

• Grid Technology and Roadmap from UNICORE to OGSA

The development of Grid technology in Fujitsu dates back to the mid 1990s, long before the word "Grid" was used to describe the concept. Since 1996 Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe has led the development of the UNICORE Grid architecture and also created a realization of it through the Arcon implementation. UNICORE provides a comprehensive collection of "first generation" Grid functions. The Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) describes a framework for interoperable Grid systems, which provide additional "second generation" functionality. Unlike first generation Grid architectures, OGSA is built on top of the emerging Web Services technology, a shift that will make Grid computing accessible to the whole business community. This paper describes, through simple use cases, the key functions of both generations of Grid technology and outlines the roadmap from UNICORE to OGSA.

• Comparison of Data Grid Solutions

The Grid is an infrastructure that enables the sharing of geographically dispersed computing resources. It has been used for many large-scale scientific projects with new business applications on the horizon. Many of these applications utilizing the Grid are expected to generate enormous amount of data, and there is an imminent need for enhanced mechanisms for utilizing the necessary distributed storage resources. The Data Grid is a middleware solution that addresses the issues particular to operating very large, heterogeneous, distributed storage facilities. In this paper, we identify functional requirements for the Data Grid and examine and compare three Data Grid solutions: Globus Toolkit, Avaki Data Grid, and the Storage Resource Broker.