EC-GIN: Europe-China Grid InterNetworking

EC-GIN The Internet communication infrastructure (the TCP/IP protocol stack) is designed for broad use; as such, it does not take the specific characteristics of Grid applications into account. This one-size-fits-all approach works for a number of application domains, however, it is far from being optimal - general network mechanisms, while useful for the Grid, cannot be as efficient as customised solutions. While the Grid is slowly emerging, its network infrastructure is still in its infancy. Thus, based on a number of properties that make Grids unique from the network perspective, the project EC-GIN (Europe-China Grid InterNetworking) will develop tailored network technology in dedicated support of Grid applications. These technical solutions will be supplemented with a secure and incentive-based Grid Services network traffic management system, which will balance the conflicting performance demand and the economic use of resources in the network and within the Grid.

By collaboration between European and Chinese partners, EC-GIN parallels previous efforts for real-time multimedia transmission across the Internet: much like the Grid, these applications have special network requirements and show a special behaviour from the network perspective. However, while research into network support for multimedia applications has flourished, leading to a large number of standard protocols and mechanisms, the research community has neglected network support for Grid computing up to now. By filling this gap and appropriately exploiting / disseminating the project results, EC-GIN will, therefore, cause a "snowball effect" in the European and Chinese networking and Grid computing research communities.

Technically, EC-GIN will make the Grid work, operate, and communicate better. By appropriately utilising the underlying network, Grid resources in general will be used more efficiently, which either means greater productivity (because less time is wasted by waiting for results from Grid applications) or less financial investment (because todays efficiency can be attained with cheaper resources) and, therefore, amplifies the impact of Grid computing on the society and economy of Europe and China.

General Information

Reference: Specific Targeted Research or Innovation Project (STREP), FP6-2005-IST-6-045256
Source of funding: European Commission
Project Duration: November 1, 2006 - October 31, 2009
Official Project Home Page:
 To be defined

Project Overview

The overall aims of the project will focus on research on

EC-GIN will make use of special Grid characteristics mainly addressing the highly important ones listed
above for enhancing the communication capabilities of Grid applications.

Since both the Grid and the Internet are under control of humans, strictly technical solutions that do not take human behaviour (incentives of users and their applications) into account, have inevitable limitations. Therefore, EC-GIN mechanisms will be supplemented with a secure incentive-based Grid Service and network traffic management system, which will balance the inherently conflicting interests of high
performance (user) and economic resource usage (service provider). Exploring Internet-based distribution of high-performance computing in China is highly important due to a practical and potentially large Chinese market. EC-GIN will benefit networking, sensor, large-scale database,
data warehouse, information sharing, and expert knowledge sharing and will introduce necessary innovation and novel technologies into the Chinese and European Grid systems. The project will also lead to improved research collaborations between China and Europe in Grid computing.

To summarise, the following are the four major objectives of EC-GIN:

  1. Development of Grid-specific network management mechanisms that enable Grid applications to use their resources more efficiently or in other words, "make the Grid faster".
  2. Development of a secure incentive-based solution for economic management of Grid and network resources.
  3. Cause a "snowball effect" in the European and Chinese research community, convincing other networking/Grid computing researchers to jump on the bandwagon. This is a typical effect that happens when a crafty team of researchers focuses on a new research topic and accordingly disseminates its results.
  4. Promote global adoption of Grid environments and tools particularly in a pan-European and pan-Chinese environment to achieve a realistic and long-distance demonstrator case.

Self evaluation and assessment, which will be carried out by the Management Team in collaboration with an Advisory Board as a part of the management activities of this project (see page 15 ff.), will ensure that these objectives will be reached in time.

EC-GIN will work towards achieving the four major objectives above; along the way, a number of tangible outcomes will be produced. The three most significant ones are:

  1. Mathematical models for generating Grid-like traffic in network simulators, and Grid traffic generation code for the "ns-2" network simulator.
  2. Prototype implementations of network management enhancements for the Grid along with performance evaluation reports.
  3. A well-focused implementation of key mechanisms developed in the project; this will take the form of an extension to an open source operating system such as Linux.


Project Partners

Personnel


Contact

Inquiries may be directed to the loal INRIA manager of the project:

Dr. Pascale Primet Vicat-Blanc

INRIA Rhone-Alpes
ENS Lyon, LIP, projet RESO
46 allée d'Italie
69364 Lyon Cedex 07
France

Last modified: Wed Jul 11 17:51:45 Paris, Madrid 2007