Grid Computing:

1. NCREN Community Day, MCNCFriday, December 9th, 2005Barry WilkinsonDepartment of Computer ScienceUNC-CharlotteFor the grid computing course team.Co-instructor Clayton Ferner, UNC-W Grid Computing: Experiences using NCREN to Teach Grid Computing to Institutions Across North Carolina

2. Grid Computing Using geographically distributed and interconnected computers for high performance computing and/or for resource sharing. The grid virtualizes heterogeneous geographically disperse resources From "Introduction to Grid Computing with Globus," IBM Redbooks

3. Applications • Originally e-Science applications • Computational intensive, not necessarily one big problem but a problem that has to be solved repeatedly with different parameters. • Data intensive. • Experimental collaborative projects • Now also e-Business applications to improve business models and practices.

4. Virtual Organizations Grid computing offers the potential of virtual organizations: • groups of people both geographically and organizationally distributed working together on a problems sharing computers AND other resources such as databases and experimental equipment. • Crosses multiple administrative domains.

5. Numerous grid computing projectsExampleNSF Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) I. Foster

6. Close to home: From “Grid Computing in the Industry” by Wolfgang Gentzsch, presentation to Fall 2004 grid computing course. Full set of slides on course home page.

7. Grid Computing Course • Taught on NCREN network, Fall 2004 and 2005 • Undergraduate course • Fall 2004: 8 sites • Fall 2005: 12 sites

8. Participating Sites, Fall 2004 course • Western Carolina University (originator) • UNC-Wilmington • NC State University • UNC-Asheville • UNC-Greensboro • Appalachian State University • NC Central University • Cape Fear Community College • Elon University 43 students, several faculty

9. Grid Computing Course - Fall 2005 • Broadcast from UNC-C to students at: • Appalachian State University • Lenoir Rhyne College • NC State University • UNC-Asheville • UNC-Pembroke • UNC-Wilmington • Western Carolina University • Winston-Salem State University • Also received at: • Elon University • UNC Chapel Hill • Wake Tech. Community College • 32 students, several faculty

10. Participating Sites, Fall 2005 • Lenoir Rhyne College Wake Tech. Community College • Elon University Participating UNC campuses Private institutions

11. MCNC UNC-W UNC-A NCSU WCU UNC-C ASU Fall 2005 Course grid structure

12. Guest Speakers, Fall 2004 • Professor Daniel A. Reed, Vice Chancellor for IT and CIO, UNC-Chapel Hill, Director of RENCI. • Wolfgang Gentzsch, Managing Director, MCNC Grid Computing and Networking Services. • Chuck Kesler, Director, Grid Deployment and Data Center Services, MCNC. • Professor Ian Foster, Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago (Taped presentation). Guest Speakers, Fall 2005 • Jeff Schmitt, genesismolecular.com • Jim Jokl, University of Virginia, Art Vandenberg, Georgia State University, Mary Fran Yafchak, SURA. • Lavanya Ramakrishnan, The Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI).

13. Course Home Page http://www.cs.uncc.edu/~abw/ITCS4010F05

14. Faculty UNC-C Dr. Barry Wilkinson UNC-W Dr. Clayton Ferner NCSU Dr. Gary Howell UNC-A Dr. Dean Brock WCU Dr. Mark Holliday Students UNC-C Kevin Hammond (PhD student) Nalin Subramanian (MS student) WCU James Ruff (Undergraduate student)

15. Challenges and successes

16. Challenges - Technical Issues(grid computing) • Setting up the grid infrastructure – very “challenging” • Providing students with a stable distributed grid computing platform • Moving the students through a set of detailed programming assignments in the face of system and student problems. Relies heavily on faculty contacts at each site.

17. Challenges - NCREN issues • Communicating effectively in class with up to 12 sites simultaneously. • Involving new NCREN sites • Private universities joined NCREN network in 2005 and were provided with televideo equipment to receive course.

18. Other Multi-site Issues • Each site has a different academic calendar! • Only one date was the same at each site - Thanksgiving and even that there different numbers of days provided for it • Can state institutions unify calendars?

19. Successes • This course was probably the first such course in the country, and possibly in the world, to involve undergraduate students and so many distributed sites and students using a televideo system such as NCREN.

20. Sample email from Fall 2005 class • Dr. Wilkinson, I just wanted to say I enjoyed your course very much; it was without doubt the most "contemporary" area of CS study I have ever pursued…. . --Clarence Alston App State. Dec 7, 2005

21. Attracting National Attention • Hello, I am the editor of Science Grid This Week (http://www.interactions.org/sgtw), an NSF-funded e-newsletter for the scientific and grid computing communities. I would like to write an article about your grid computing course for the newsletter, …Sincerely, Katie Yurkewicz, Grid Communications Office of Public Affairs, Fermilab Dec 7, 2005

22. Acknowledgements • I wish to thank everybody at NCREN for making it possible. • Natasha Stracener, Program Coordinator/ Technical Director at UNC-C. • Also NCREN infrastructure pivotal factor in being able to raise external funding (4 NSF grants 1995-2004).

23. Acknowledgements • University of North Carolina Office of President, “A Consortium to Promote Computational Science and High Performance Computing,” PI: B. Kurtz (Appalachian State University) total $650,000, 2004-2006. • University of North Carolina Office of President, “Fostering Undergraduate Research Partnerships through a Graphical User Environment for the North Carolina Computing Grid,” PI: R. Vetter (UNC-Wilmington), total $557,634, 2004-2006. • National Science Foundation, “Introducing Grid Computing into the Undergraduate Curricula,” ref. DUE 0410667/053334, PI: B. Wilkinson, $100,000, 2004-2006.

24. New funding and leveraging work • National Science Foundation, “Introducing Grid Computing into the Undergraduate Curricula, Additional Funding,” ref. DUE 0533334, PI: B. Wilkinson, $8216, 2005-2006, to collaborative with the University of Arkansas. • (This grant may be the smallest NSF award ever.) • EPA, “VisualGrid (Phase I),” PI W. Ribarsky, $500,000, Nov 1, 2005- Oct 31, 2006. • Other grid computing proposals being submitted with various partners.

25. Questions?