The virtual resource manager Local autonomy versus QoS guarantees for Grid applications

In this paper, we describe the architecture of the virtual resource manager VRM, a management system designed to reside on top of local resource management systems for cluster computers and other kinds of resources. The most important feature of the VRM is its capability to handle quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees and service-level agreements (SLAs). The particular emphasis of the paper is on the various opportunities to deal with local autonomy for resource management systems not supporting SLAs. As local administrators may not want to hand over complete control to the Grid management, it is necessary to define strategies that deal with this issue. Local autonomy should be retained as much as possible while providing reliability and QoS guarantees for Grid applications, e.g., specified as SLAs.