Virtualized Grid Resources
Providing resources for utility grids becomes a more and more complicated task. The environment required for supporting one of the biggest Grid in the world (EGEE) requires a software stack to be installed. This software stack includes a special RedHat based Scientific Linux Operating system to be installed. This means that the resource providers have to allocate dedicated resources if they do not want to install this operating system or would like to use the Windows operating system.
The purpose of our project was to overcome the difficulties of the current Grid system administration and make it possible to utilize and manage non dedicated resources in an easy way. We use the VirtualBox virtualization tool create a virtual machine in which the Grid can run without interfering with the host operating system or machine. Since the VirtualBox tool is available for most operating system (for example Windows, Linux, ...) nearly any kind of CPU or storage resource can be utilized in the same way.
We have tested the gLite WN running inside the VirtualBox on a Windows operating system. The VirtualBox tool requires only a operating system image to function, which means that the complicated updates to the middleware can be carried out by the Grid professional people, while system administrators can consider a WN as a black box.
VirtualBox service in Windows
Virtualized glite WN service
- Overview
- Installation guide
Automatic Update System
Published work