Performance-based middleware for Grid computing

This paper describes a stateful service‐oriented middleware infrastructure for the management of scientific tasks running on multi‐domain heterogeneous distributed architectures. Allocating scientific workload across multiple administrative boundaries is a key issue in Grid computing and as a result a number of supporting services including match‐making, scheduling and staging have been developed. Each of these services allows the scientist to utilize the available resources, although a sustainable level of service in such shared environments cannot always be guaranteed. A performance‐based middleware infrastructure is described in which prediction data for each scientific task are calculated, stored and published through a Globus‐based performance information service. Distributing these data allows additional performance‐based middleware services to be built, two of which are described in this paper: an intra‐domain predictive co‐scheduler and a multi‐domain workload steering system. These additional facilities significantly improve the ability of the system to meet task deadlines, as well as enhancing inter‐domain load‐balancing and system‐wide resource utilization. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.