Extending an SSI cluster for resource discovery in grid computing

Grid technologies enable large-scale sharing of resources within formal or informal consortia of individuals and/or virtual organizations. In these settings, the discovery, characterization, and monitoring of resources, services, and computations can be challenging due to the considerable diversity, large numbers, dynamic behavior, and geographical distribution of the entities in which a user might be interested. Hence, information services are a vital part of any Grid software infrastructure, providing fundamental mechanisms for discovery and monitoring, and thus for planning and adapting application behavior. This paper proposes a resource discovery system for grid computing with fault-tolerant capabilities starting from an SSI clustering operating system. The proposed system uses dynamic leader-determination and registration mechanisms to automatically recover from nodes and network failures. The system is centralized and uses dynamic (or soft-state) registration to detect and recover from failures. Provisional or backup leader determination provides tolerance and recovery in the event of the leader node failing. The system was tested against a control network modeled after existing grid computing resource discovery components, such as Globus Monitoring and Discovery System (MDS). In various failure scenarios, the proposed system showed better resilience and performance than the control system.