Resource Evaluation and Node Monitoring in Service Oriented Ad-hoc Grids

Ad-hoc grid computing is an emerging computing technology that promises to deliver high performance at relatively low cost using existing computing resources. There are a number of grid middleware systems being developed to this end. However, a number of features are lacking that are required if ad hoc grid computing is to become viable in a production environment. This paper addresses two of these key features – a resource evaluation and allocation system, which allows grid developers to accurately specify the requirements of their grid job to ensure the most suitable nodes are used when creating the ad-hoc grid, and a node monitoring and error recovery system, which allows grid applications to detect and recover from errors and complete successfully. These systems are built into Mage, the Marburg Ad-hoc Grid Environment, a grid middleware solution developed using the Globus Toolkit, Apache Tomcat and FreePastry . .