A service-oriented approach to enforce Grid resource allocations

We present the SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS) - a decentralized and standards-based system for Grid resource allocation enforcement that has been developed with an emphasis on a uniform data model and easy integration into existing scheduling and workload management software. The system has been tested at the six high-performance computing centers comprising the SweGrid computational resource, and addresses the need for soft, real-time quota enforcement across the SweGrid clusters. The SGAS framework is based on state-of-the-art Web and Grid services technologies. The openness and ubiquity of Web services combined with the fine-grained resource control and cross-organizational security models of Grid services proved to be a perfect match for the SweGrid needs. Extensibility and customizability of policy implementations for the three different parties that the system serves (the user, the resource manager, and the allocation authority) are key design goals. Another goal is end-to-end security and single sign-on, to allow resources to reserve allocations and charge for resource usage on behalf of the user. We conclude this paper by illustrating the policy customization capabilities of SGAS in a simulated setting, where job streams are shaped using different modes of allocation policy enforcement. Finally, we discuss some of the early experiences from the production system.