Grid middleware is software that provides core services like resource authorization, authentication, job submission, and file transfer on a grid. It allows for consistent and homogeneous access to shared resources through a graphical user interface. Middleware maps resources, performs authentication, provides secure access, allocates resources, schedules jobs, and initiates job processes. The Globus Toolkit is an open source grid middleware that allows secure sharing of computing power, databases, and other tools across organizations through services for resource monitoring, discovery, and management plus security and file management.

1. Prof. Neeraj Bhargava
Pooja Dixit
Department of Computer Science
School of Engineering & System Sciences
MDS, University Ajmer, Rajasthan, India
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2.  Grid Middleware:The grid middleware is backbone of the grid
computing system which provides a set of core services such as
resources authorization, authentication, and mechanisms for job
submission, and file transfer etc. on the Grid. There are various
core program such as 'e-Science' that move forward the
development of robust and generic Grid middleware in
collaboration with industry. A grid is created by installing
software services, or middleware e.g. Globus Toolkit on a set of
networked computers to provides various facilities such as
hardware and software resource location, user authentication,
and distributed scheduling of resources and jobs.
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3. A view of grid middleware is shown in figure. It is a software tool
that provide GUI to grid user to run their application program and
consistent and homogeneous access to the shared resources. Book
keeping or transaction service is a daemon process running with
root or administrator privileges on each computational node
involve in the Grid. Middleware provides the access and
information about the grid resources. The Operations performed
by the middleware are as follows:
 Map the resources
 Perform mutual authentication
 Provide secure and transparent access
 Resource allocation
 Job scheduling
 Initiate job process etc
Grid Middleware
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4.  The Open Grid Forum (OGF) is a community of users,
developers, and vendors for standardization of grid
computing. It was formed in 2006 in a merger of
the Global Grid Forum and the Enterprise Grid Alliance.
The OGF models its process on the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), and produces documents with many
acronyms such as OGSA, OGSI, and JSDL.
 “Grid Computing” has much in common with major
industrial thrusts Business-to-business, Peer-to-peer,
Application Service Providers, Internet Computing…
 Distinguished primarily by more sophisticated sharing
modalities E.g., “run program X at site Y subject to
community policy P, providing access to data at Z
according to policy Q” Secondarily by unique demands of
advanced & high performance systems.
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5.  Grid Computing organizations and their roles can be broadly
classified into four categories based on their functional role in Grid
Computing. These roles are best described as:Organizations
developing grid standards and best practices guidelines
 Organizations developing Grid Computing toolkits, frameworks,
and middleware solutions
 Organizations building and using grid-based solutions to solve
their computing, data, and network requirements
 Organizations working to adopt grid concepts into commercial
products, via utility computing, and Business On Demand[1]
computing
 Organizations Developing Grid Standards and Best Practice
Guidelines
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6. •An Open Process for Development of Standards
•Grid “Recommendations” process modeled after Internet Standards
Process (IETF)
• Persistent, Reviewed Document Series (similar to RFC series)
initiated October 2001
•A Forum for Information Exchange
•Experiences, patterns, structures
•Useful even if every application & Grid were completely separate and
not interoperable…but ideally will result in interoperability!
• A Regular Gathering to Encourage Shared Effort
•In code development: libraries, tools…
•Via resource sharing: shared Grids
•In infrastructure: consensus standards
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7.  The open source Globus Toolkit is a fundamental enabling
technology for the "Grid," allow people share computing
power, databases, and other tools securely online across
corporate, institutional, and geographic boundaries without
sacrificing local autonomy.
 The toolkit includes software services and libraries for
resource monitoring, discovery, and management, plus
security and file management. In addition to being a central
part of science and engineering projects that total nearly a
half-billion dollars internationally, the Globus Toolkit is a
substrate on which leading IT companies are building
significant commercial Grid products.
 The toolkit includes software for security, information
infrastructure, resource management, data management,
communication, fault detection, and portability.
 It is packaged as a set of components that can be used
either independently or together to develop applications.
 Every organization has unique modes of operation, and
collaboration between multiple organizations is hindered by
incompatibility of resources such as data archives,
computers, and networks.
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8.  The Globus Toolkit was conceived to remove
obstacles that prevent seamless collaboration.
 The Globus Toolkit has grown through an open-
source strategy similar to the Linux operating
system's, and distinct from proprietary attempts at
resource-sharing software. This encourages broader,
more rapid adoption and leads to greater technical
innovation, as the open-source community provides
continual enhancements to the product.
 Its core services, interfaces and protocols allow users
to access remote resources as if they were located
within their own machine room while simultaneously
preserving local control over who can use resources
and when.
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