Grid

Clouds versus Grids
Peter Kacsuk
MTA SZTAKI

My background
• I am the director of a research lab in the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences where we
– Run the GASuC (Grid Application Support Centre) service and coordinate other similar centres in EGEE
– Develop one of the most popular generic-purpose science gateway in Europe
– Coordinate the EDGeS project in which we integrate gLite-based grids with BOINC- and XtremWeb-based desktop grids

Clouds versus Grids
• Clouds represent a challenge to Grid systems
• Already scientists started to use Clouds instead of Grids
• It does not mean we have to stop building Grids
• It only means we have to learn from Clouds and adapt those feature of Clouds that are really useful for the end-users
• I try to summarize what these changes could be in the grid systems

Comparison of clouds, grids and volunteer computing (global desktop grids)
• Security
– Clouds:
• due to virtualization there is no need for certificates
• at SaaS level anyone can use the available services without certificates – Desktop grids:
• trusted (validated) applications
• PC donors trust applications and not users (no need for user certificate) – Grids:
• any user can submit any job -> we need grid certificates
• show-stopping obstacle for many potential users
• source of errors when certificates or revocation lists expire

Do we need grid certificates?
• Grids
– Any user can submit any job
– But this feature is needed only for grid application developers
– End-users want to submit ready-to-use applications developed by grid application developers. Since these are trusted applications (services), end-users would not need certitificates

Proposition
• Current grids (where any user with a grid certificate can submit any job) are actually
Development Grids
– needed only for application developers
– these can be relatively small size grids

• End-users would be happy with Service Grids
– where only