Databases and the grid

This paper examines how databases can be integrated into the Grid. Almost all early Grid applications are file-based, and so, to date, there has been relatively little effort applied to integrating databases into the Grid. However, if the Grid is to support a wider range of applications, both scientific and otherwise, then database integration into the Grid will become important. Therefore, this paper investigates the requirements of Grid-enabled databases and considers how these requirements are met by existing Grid middleware. This shows that support is very limited. The paper therefore goes on to propose a service-based architecture, and identifies the key service functionalities needed to meet the requirements. In this architecture, database systems are wrapped within a Grid-enabled service interface that simplifies the task of building applications that access their contents. The ability to federate data from multiple databases is likely to be a very powerful facility for Grid users wishing to collate and analyse information distributed over the Grid. The paper describes how the service-based framework assists in federating database servers over the Grid by supporting the creation of virtual databases that present the same service interface to applications as do the individual, unfederated, database systems.