Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
5. Grid security: Provides user authentication, resources and services
authorization, encrypted transmission, and the mapping between
users to resource authorization.
4.4
Besides the development of CGSP, another major task for the ChinaGrid
project is the deployment of the grid computing application platform and
some pilot grid applications, making the ChinaGrid very unique com-
pared to other existing grid projects. In the i rst stage of the ChinaGrid
project, i ve ongoing main grid computing application platforms were
under development: the bioinformatics grid [18], image grid [19], compu-
tational l uid dynamics grid [20], course online grid [21], and massive data
processing grid [22]. The i rst three grids are actually computationally
oriented. The course online grid is a very unique grid, which is the i rst
step to an information service grid. The last one, the massive data process-
ing grid, is the data grid in nature [23]. These grid application platforms
will now be discussed in detail.
Grid Computing Application Platforms in the ChinaGrid
4.4.1
Bioinformatics Grid
Bioinformatics merges biology, computer science, and information tech-
nology into one discipline. The ultimate goal of the i eld is to enable the
discovery of new biological insights. It mainly focuses on grasping the
biological meaning of plentiful biological data. Bioinformatics uses data-
bases, data processing methods, and software to get results through mass
computation. Each bioinformatics research institute holds their own
computing facilities, software resources, and storage devices. They set up
their own research platform independently. Although most of these
resources are connected to the Internet, they are only used by their owners
and the utilization rate is low. At the same time, many researchers in
Chinese universities have no such research resources to use.
The bioinformatics grid integrates heterogeneous large-scale computing
and storage facilities within the ChinaGrid to provide bioinformatics super-
computing services for bioinformatics researchers through a user-friendly
Web interface. Only two steps are required for users to use bioinformatics
grid through this portal: i rst inputting the computing requests according
to the submission form from Web page, and second getting the computing
results from bioinformatics grid. Where the requests are submitted, how
the computing requests are allocated, and the monitoring and management
for computing tasks are all completed by the bioinformatics grid itself.
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