Research Article

Scalable Grid-wide capacity allocation with the SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS)

  1. Peter Gardfjäll1,
  2. Erik Elmroth1,*,
  3. Lennart Johnsson2,
  4. Olle Mulmo2,
  5. Thomas Sandholm2

Article first published online: 6 JUN 2008

DOI: 10.1002/cpe.1310

Issue

Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience

Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience

Volume 20, Issue 18, pages 2089–2122, 25 December 2008

Additional Information

How to Cite

Gardfjäll, P., Elmroth, E., Johnsson, L., Mulmo, O. and Sandholm, T. (2008), Scalable Grid-wide capacity allocation with the SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS). Concurrency Computat.: Pract. Exper., 20: 2089–2122. doi: 10.1002/cpe.1310

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Computing Science and HPC2N, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden

  2. 2

    School of Computer Science and Communication, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

*Department of Computing Science and HPC2N, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 28 OCT 2008
  2. Article first published online: 6 JUN 2008
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 17 DEC 2007
  4. Manuscript Revised: 30 NOV 2007
  5. Manuscript Received: 31 OCT 2006

Funded by

  • Swedish Research Council (VR). Grant Numbers: 343-2003-953, 621-2005-3667

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Keywords:

  • Grid accounting;
  • Grid capacity allocation;
  • quota enforcement;
  • service virtualization;
  • service-oriented architecture (SOA);
  • Web services;
  • Globus Toolkit

Abstract

The SweGrid Accounting System (SGAS) allocates capacity in collaborative Grid environments by coordinating enforcement of Grid-wide usage limits as a means to offer usage guarantees and prevent overuse. SGAS employs a credit-based allocation model where Grid capacity is granted to projects via Grid-wide quota allowances that can be spent across the Grid resources. The resources collectively enforce these allowances in a soft, real-time manner. SGAS is built on service-oriented principles with a strong focus on interoperability and Web services standards. This article covers the SGAS design and implementation, which, besides addressing inherent Grid challenges (scale, security, heterogeneity, decentralization), emphasizes generality and flexibility to produce a customizable system with lightweight integration into different middleware and scheduling system combinations. We focus the discussion around the system design, a flexible allocation model, middleware integration experiences and scalability improvements via a distributed virtual banking system, and finally, an extensive set of testbed experiments. The experiments evaluate the performance of SGAS in terms of response times, request throughput, overall system scalability, and its performance impact on the Globus Toolkit 4 job submission software. We conclude that, for all practical purposes, the quota enforcement overhead incurred by SGAS on job submissions is not a limiting factor for the job-handling capacity of the job submission software. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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