:: European DataGrid Tutorial

[ All the slides for the EDG tutorial can be found here. ]

This part of the curriculum will provide both an introduction to some aspects of Grid Computing and to the Grid software that has been produced within the EU DataGrid project (EDG). EDG has as its aim to develop a large-scale research testbed for Grid computing. The project is in its final phase and a testbed spanning some ten major sites all over Europe has been up and running continuously since the beginning of 2002. The tutorials will present the EDG software architecture and discuss the interplay of basic grid software (Globus, Condor), higher level EDG middleware, and application software on the EDG testbed. Emphasis will be put on specific middleware issues in job submission and data management as well as on EDG's security architecture. In several exercises students will learn how to use Grid tools for their distributed data or computing intensive applications. In addition, two optional hours of exercises will be proposed to students, focusing on network performance aspects of the Grid. The topics covered follow.

Overview of Grid computing in general and the European DataGrid project (EDG).

Security Issues and Overview of the EDG Testbed
Secure access to Grid resources is a major issue and one of the first things a user has to deal with when starting to use the Grid, i.e. the EDG testbed. A basic overview about current security solutions in the EDG project is given. Furthermore, EDG deploys a large-scale testbed that spans several sites at various places all over Europe. Definitions are given about what Grid services and resources are available and where they can be used. A detailed overview about the testbed is given.

Job Submission / Workload Management
Most of the users of the EDG software interact with the EDG software system by submitting their jobs (executable programs) to a Resource Broker which does a matchmaking on available and requested resources and then dispatches jobs to resources in the testbed. This lecture provides background about the work load management software system and details about how job submission is done using the EDG software system.

Data Management
One of the main objectives of a Data Grid is the management of large distributed data stores. This lecture gives an overview about replica and meta data management as well as the software tools provided by EDG to deal with data management problems.

Information Systems - Software Installation/Configuration
In a Grid environment, there are several hardware and software resources that can be used by end users as well as Grid services and applications. Information systems are used to keep track of resources and also to monitor the current status. The EDG solution is outlined in detail and how end user can interact with it. The second part covers the first part of Software Installation/Configuration: This lecture gives a very brief introduction to installation and configuration of EDG software tools.

Software Installation/Configuration II - Applications on the Grid
Second part of Software Installation/Configuration. In the EDG project, three major application domains are supported: High Energy Physics, Earth Observation and Biomedical Applications. The talk gives a brief overview about these applications and how they use and have used Grid tools.