GIRD is a research project with the objective to develop specifications and prototype implementations for the future IT infrastructure for large-scale provisioning of IT services.

The Grid and Cloud computing environments in focus for our research are aimed for datacenters providing the infrastructure for internet-based services, for in-house data departments serving their companies' needs, and for large-scale pooling of distributed supercomputing capacity. Our projects embraces the whole research cycle from basic methodological research on fundamental theory, methods, and algorithms; via system design and implementation of prototype software; to deployment and large-scale test and evaluation.

Below, we present some specific projects, some of which are performed in close collaboration with the High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N). The project is partly funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) and EU FP7.
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Some ongoing projects

RESERVOIR
Resources and Services Virtualization without Barriers (RESERVOIR) is a European Union FP7 funded project that will enable massive scale deployment and management of complex IT services across different administrative domains and IT platforms. The project will develop open specifications, architecture, and a prototype implementation of a federated cloud infrastructure. This new infrastructure will provide a foundation for a service-based online economy, where, using virtualization technologies, resources and services are transparently provisioned and managed on an on-demand basis at competitive costs. The RESERVOIR consortium includes 13 partners and is coordinated by IBM Haifa.
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SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS)
SGAS allocates capacity between user groups in collaborative Grid environments by coordinating enforcement of Grid-wide usage limits. SGAS employs a credit-based allocation model where Grid capacity is granted to projects via Grid-wide quota allowances that can be spent across the Grid resources. The resources collectively enforce these allowances in a soft, real-time manner. SGAS is included in the Globus Toolkit 4.
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Decentralized Grid-wide fairshare scheduling (FSGrid)
FSGrid provides three-party QoS support (user, resource-owner, VO-authority) for enforcement of locally and globally scoped share policies. The system allows local resource capacity as well as global Grid capacity to be logically divided across different groups of users. The policy model is hierarchical and subpolicy definition can be delegated so that, e.g., a VO that has been granted a resource share can partition its share across its projects, which in turn can divide their shares between project members.
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Decentralized, cross-middleware Grid Job Submission Service (JSS)
The JSS is a feature-rich, standards-based framework for cross-middleware job submission, that includes a Grid resource brokering service that supports advance reservations, coallocation, and cross-Grid interoperability. The service implements a decentralized brokering policy, striving to optimize the performance for individual users by minimizing the response time for each submitted job.
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Grid Job Management Framework (GJMF)
The Grid Job Management Framework aims to form an easy-to-use job submission platform for collaborative scientific Grid computing environments. The framework comprises a set of Grid services offering functionality for submitting, controlling and managing jobs and groups of jobs. The granularity of job control ranges from a top-level fire-and-forget perspective to individual job management.
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Generic Workflow Execution Services
Lightweight and generic workflow execution engines are developed in order to facilitate the construction of various types of workflow-oriented user interfaces and portals, and to facilitate their usage with multiple different middleware.

Grid Portals
For many users, a grid portal is the most convenient way to access various grid resources, i.e., through a standard web browser. The portal offers an easy-to-use web interface to a diverse set of heterogeneous systems (Grids or individual computers). The interface includes support for most everyday user activities such as to submit, manipulate and delete jobs, monitor queues and job status, obtain user-, project-, and resource statistics and information, view job output, etc.
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Web Computing Environments for Numerical Software
Some of the more application specific grid and web computing projects are related to the EC funded NICONET project. For example, we are developing a web-environment for numerical computations in systems and control theory in collaboration with TU Berlin and HPC2N.
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Remote Execution of Numerical Software
The rapid development of basic grid computing infrastructure put strong demands on development of grid-enabled application software and software libraries. Some of the typical grid resource usage scenarios are based on the underlying idea that all small computations are performed on a single local computer, while large-scale computations automatically are distributed to appropriate and more powerful computing resource on the grid. Example include grid-empowered problem solving environments and web-based science portals.
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People involved

Erik Elmroth (Associate Professor, Grid research PI)
Bo Kågström (Professor, HPC2N Director)
Francisco Hernandez (PhD, Researcher)
Johan Tordsson (PhD, Researcher)
Daniel Henriksson (PhD Student)
Lars Larsson (PhD Student)
Wubin Li (PhD Student)
P-O Östberg (PhD Student)
Björn Kriström (Project Assistant)
Petter Svärd (Project Assistant)
Raphaela Bieber (Systems Developer, at HPC2N)
Pedher Johansson (PhD, Systems Developer, at HPC2N)
Mats Nylén (PhD, SweGrid project lead, at HPC2N)
Roger Oscarsson (EGEE, at HPC2N)
Åke Sandgren (SweGrid, at HPC2N)
Mattias Wadenstein (NDGF, at HPC2N)

Gone but not forgotten
Peter Gardfjäll (PhLic.), Sogeti AB, Umeå
Henrik Thostrup Jensen (Visiting PhD Stud.), Aalborg Univ., Denmark
Arvid Norberg (Software developer), Bittorent Inc, San Francisco, CA, USA

Software

Software is contributed to NorduGrid/ARC and to Globus, where we also are part of the Globus Academic Affiliate Program. Other major networks in which we participate include RESERVOIR, The NESSI Workgroup on Service oriented Infrastructure, and The CoreGRID Network of Excellence.

Recent Grid and Cloud Computing Publications

J. Tordsson, R.S. Montero, R.M. Vozmediano, and I.M. Llorente. Optimized placement of virtual machines across multiple clouds. Submitted for journal publication, 2009.

E. Elmroth and J. Tordsson. A standards-based Grid resource brokering service supporting advance reservations, coallocation and cross-Grid interoperability. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Volume 21, No. 18, pp. 2298-2335, 2009.

P-O. Östberg. Architectures, Design Methodologies, and Service Composition Techniques for Grid Job and Resource Management. Licentiate Thesis, Report UMINF 09.15, ISSN 0348-0542, ISBN 978-91-7264-861-6, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, October 2009.

E. Elmroth and D. Henriksson. Distributed Usage Logging for Federated Grids. Submitted for journal publication, 2009.

E. Elmroth and P-O. Östberg. Composable Service-Oriented Architecture for Middleware-Independent and Interoperable Grid Job Management. Submitted for journal publication, 2009.

E. Elmroth F. Hernández, and J. Tordsson. Three Fundamental Dimensions of Scientific Workflow Interoperability: Model of Computation, Language, and Execution Environment. Future Generation Computer Systems. The International Journal of Grid Computing: Theory, Methods and Applications. Elsevier, accepted, 2009.

E. Elmroth and L. Larsson. Interfaces for Placement, Migration, and Monitoring of Virtual Machines in Federated Clouds. In Juan. E. Guerrero (ed), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2009), IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 253 - 260, 2009.

E. Elmroth, F. Galán, D. Henriksson and D. Perales. Accounting and Billing for Federated Cloud Infrastructures. In Juan. E. Guerrero (ed), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2009), IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 268 - 275, 2009.

J. Tordsson. Portable Tools for Interoperable Grids: Modular Architectures and Software for Job and Workflow Management. PhD Thesis, Report UMINF 09.08, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden, ISSN 0348-0542, ISBN 978-91-7264-754-1, 2009.

B. Rochwerger, D. Breitgand, E. Levy, A. Galis, K. Nagin, I. Llorente, R. Montero, Y. Wolfsthal, E. Elmroth, J. Caceres, M. Ben-Yehuda, W. Emmerich, and F. Galán. The RESERVOIR Model and Architecture for Open Federated Cloud Computing. IBM Journal of Research & Development, Volume 53, Number 4, 2009.

A-C. Berglund, E. Elmroth, F. Hernandez, B. Sandman, and J. Tordsson. Combining local and Grid resources in scientific workflows (for bioinformatics). The 9th International Workshop on State-of-the-Art in Scientific and Parallel Computing, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, to appear, 2009.

E. Elmroth, S. Holmgren, J. Lindemann, S. Toor, and P-O. Östberg. Empowering a Flexible Application Portal with a SOA-based Grid Job Management Framework. The 9th International Workshop on State-of-the-Art in Scientific and Parallel Computing, to appear, 2009.

B. Rochwerger, A. Galis, E. Levy, J. A. Cáceres, D. Breitgand, Y. Wolfsthal, I.M. Llorente, M. Wusthoff, R.S. Montero, and E. Elmroth. RESERVOIR: Management Technologies and Requirements for Next Generation Service Oriented Infrastructures, The 11th IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 307-310, 2009.

E. Elmroth, M. Nylén, and R. Oscarsson. A User-Centric Cluster and Grid Computing Portal. International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 127-134, 2009.

E. Elmroth, M. Jankowski, and N. Meyer. Authorizing Grid Resource Access and Consumption. CoreGRID Technical Report TR-0161. Also available in N. Meyer et.al. (eds), Grid and Services Evolution. Proceedings of the 3rd CoreGRID Workshop on Grid Middleware. CoreGrid Series, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-85965-1, pp. 157-168, 2009.

B. Rochwerger, A. Galis, D. Breitgand, E. Levy, J. A. Cáceres, I. M. Llorente, Y. Wolfsthal, M. Wusthoff, S. Clayman, C. Chapman, W. Emmerich, E. Elmroth, R. S. Montero. Design for Future Internet Service Infrastructures, In G. Tselentis et al. (Eds.), Towards the Future Internet, IOS Press, pp. 227-237, 2009.

M. Ben Yehuda, O. Biran, D. Breitgand, K. Meth, B. Rochwerger, E. Salant, E. Silvera, S. Tal, Y. Wolfsthal, J. Cáceres, J. Hierro, W. Emmerich, A. Galis, L. Edblom, E. Elmroth, D. Henriksson, F. Hernandez, J. Tordsson, A. Hohl, E. Levy, A. Sampaio, B. Scheuermann, M. Wusthoff, J. Latanicki, G. Lopez, J. Marin-Frisonroche, A. Dörr, F. Ferstl, S. Beco, F. Pacini, I. Llorente, R. Montero, E. Huedo, P. Massonet, S. Naqvi, G. Dallons, M. Pezzé, A. Puliato, C. Ragusa, M. Scarpa, and S. Muscella. Cloud Computing and RESERVOIR project, The Il Nuovo Cimento Journal, (accepted), 2009.

P. Gardfjäll, E. Elmroth, L. Johnsson, O. Mulmo, and T. Sandholm. Scalable Grid-wide Capacity Allocation with the SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS). Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Vol. 20, No. 18, pp. 2089 - 2122, 2008. (Preprint)

E. Elmroth and J. Tordsson. Grid Resource Brokering Algorithms Enabling Advance Reservations and Resource Selection Based on Performance Predictions. Future Generation Computer Systems. The International Journal of Grid Computing: Theory, Methods and Applications. Elsevier, Vol 24, No. 6, pp. 585-593, 2008. (Preprint)

E. Elmroth and P-O. Östberg. Dynamic and Transparent Service Compositions Techniques for Service-Oriented Grid Architectures. In S. Gorlatch, P. Fragopoulou and T. Priol (Eds.), Integrated Research in Grid Computing, Crete University Press, pp. 323--334, 2008.

E. Elmroth, F. Hernandez, J. Tordsson, and P-O. Östberg. Designing Service-Based Resource Management Tools for a Healthy Grid Ecosystem. Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4967, pp. 259-270, 2008.

E. Elmroth, F. Hernandez and J. Tordsson. A light-weight Grid workflow execution service enabling client and middleware independence. Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4967, pp. 754-761, 2008.

M. Ben Yehuda, O. Biran, D. Breitgand, K. Meth, B. Rochwerger, E. Salant, E. Silvera, S. Tal, Y. Wolfsthal, J. Cáceres, J. Hierro, W. Emmerich, A. Galis, L. Edblom, E. Elmroth, D. Henriksson, F. Hernandez, J. Tordsson, A. Hohl, E. Levy, A. Sampaio, B. Scheuermann, M. Wusthoff, J. Latanicki, G. Lopez, J. Marin-Frisonroche, A. Dörr, F. Ferstl, S. Beco, F. Pacini, I. Llorente, R. Montero, E. Huedo, P. Massonet, S. Naqvi, G. Dallons, M. Pezzé, A. Puliato, C. Ragusa, M. Scarpa, and S. Muscella. RESERVOIR - An ICT Infrastructure for Reliable and Effective Delivery of Services as Utilities, IBM Research Report, IBM Haifa Research Laboratory, Israel, 2008.

E. Elmroth, P. Gardfjäll, A. Norberg, J. Tordsson and P-O. Östberg. Designing general, composable, and middleware-independent Grid infrastructure tools for multi-tiered job management. In T. Priol and M. Vaneschi (Eds.) Towards Next Generation Grids. Springer Verlag, pp. 175 - 184, 2007.

J. Tordsson. Decentralized Resource Brokering for Heterogeneous Grid Environments, Licentiate Thesis, Report UMINF 06.39, ISSN 0348-0542, ISBN 91-7264-225-4, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, November 2006.

P. Gardfjäll. Capacity Allocation Mechanisms for Grid Environments, Licentiate Thesis, Report UMINF 06.38, ISSN 0348-0542, ISBN 91-7264-216-5, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, October 2006.

Z. Guan, F. Hernandez, P. Bangalore, J. Gray, A. Skjellum, V. Velusamy, Y. Liu. Grid-Flow: a Grid-enabled scientific workflow system with a petri-net-based interface. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 18(10), pp. 1115 - 1140, 2006.

F. Hernandez, P. Bangalore, J. Gray, Z. Guan, K. Reilly. GAUGE: Grid Automation and Generative Environment. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 18(10), pp. 1293 - 1316, 2006.

E. Elmroth, M. Nylén, and R. Oscarsson. A User-Centric Cluster and Grid Computing Portal. International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 5, 2007 (to appear).

T. Sandholm, P. Gardfjäll, E. Elmroth, L. Johnsson, and O. Mulmo. A Service-oriented Approach to Enforce Grid Resource Allocations. International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 439-459, 2006.

E. Elmroth, P. Gardfjäll, O. Mulmo, and T. Sandholm. An OGSA-based Bank Service for Grid Accounting Systems. State-of-the-art in Scientific Computing. Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3732, pp. 1051-1060, 2006.

E. Elmroth and J. Tordsson. A Grid Resource Broker Supporting Advance Reservations and Benchmark-based Resource Selection. State-of-the-art in Scientific Computing. Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3732, pp. 1061-1070, 2006.

E. Elmroth and R. Skelander. Semi-automatic generation of Grid computing interfaces for numerical software libraries. State-of-the-art in Scientific Computing. Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3732, pp. 404-412, 2006.

E. Elmroth and J. Tordsson. An Interoperable Standards-based Grid Resource Broker and Job Submission Service, e-Science 2005. First IEEE Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing, IEEE Computer Society Press, USA, pp. 212-220, 2005.

E. Elmroth and P. Gardfjäll. Design and Evaluation of a Decentralized System for Grid-wide Fairshare Scheduling, e-Science 2005. First IEEE Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing, IEEE Computer Society Press, USA, pp. 221-229, 2005.

E. Elmroth, P. Gardfjäll, and J. Tordsson. An Advanced Grid Computing Course for Application and Infrastructure Developers. CCGrid05, IEEE Computer Society Press, USA, pp. 43-50, 2005.

T. Sandholm, P. Gardfjäll, E. Elmroth, L. Johnsson, and O. Mulmo. An OGSA-Based Accounting System for Allocation Enforcement across HPC Centers. ICSOC'04, ACM, pp. 279 - 288, 2004.

P. Gardfjäll. Accounting in Grid Environments - an Architecture Proposal and a Prototype Implementation. MSc Thesis, UMNAD 2004-507, Dept. of Computing Science, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden, 2004.

J. Tordsson. Resource Brokering for Grid Environments. MSc Thesis, UMNAD 2004-506, Dept. of Computing Science, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden, 2004.

E. Elmroth, P. Gardfjäll, O. Mulmo, T. Sandholm, Å. Sandgren. A Coordinated Accounting Solution for SweGrid. October, 2003.

E. Elmroth, Å. Sandgren, and J. Tordsson. Resource Management for Early Production Grids. June, 2003.

P. Johansson and D. Kressner. Semi-Automatic Generation of Web-Based Computing Environments for Software Libraries. In Proceedings of The 2002 International Conference on Computational Science (ICCS2002), 2002.

E. Elmroth, P. Johansson, B. Kågström, and D. Kreßner. A Web Computing Environment for the SLICOT Library. In P. Van Dooren and S. Van Huffel, The Third NICONET Workshop on Numerical Control Software, pp. 53-61, 2001. Also available as SLICOT Working Note 2001-02.