The NorduGrid middleware (Advanced Resource Connector, ARC)
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              Release 0.4 announcement
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                                               April 13, 2004


After two years of development and testing, the NorduGrid
collaboration is pleased to announce release 0.4 of its Grid
middleware (also known as the Advanced Resource Connector), the first
official release of this software.

Since the first development release (May 2002) the middleware has been
deployed and used in production environments in many countries.
Emphasis has been put on scalability, stability, reliability and
performance of the middleware.


-Description-

The NorduGrid middleware (or the Advanced Resource Connector, ARC) is
an open source software solution enabling production quality
computational and data grids. The middleware integrates computing
resources (commodity computing clusters managed by a batch system or
standalone workstations) and Storage Elements, making them available
via a common secure grid layer.  The middleware builds upon standard
open source solutions like the OpenLDAP, OpenSSL, SASL and Globus
Toolkit 2 (GT2 www.globus.org) libraries.


-Features-

ARC provides a reliable implementation of fundamental grid services,
such as information services, resource discovery and monitoring, job
submission and management, brokering, data management and resource
management. Most of these services are provided through the security
layer of GSI.  NorduGrid provides innovative solutions essential for a
production quality middleware: the Grid Manager, gridftpd (the
ARC/NorduGrid GridFTP server), the information model and providers
(NorduGrid schema), the User Interface and broker (a "personal" broker
integrated into the user interface), the extended Resource
Specification Language (xRSL) and the monitoring system.

ARC main components are:

  o Grid services running on the resources: the Grid Manager, the
    gridftpd and the information services.
    
  o Indexing services for the resources and data.
  
  o Clients making intelligent use of the distributed information and
    data available on the grid.


-System requirements-

  o For a Cluster Grid resource (nordugrid-cluster), you will need a
    Unix cluster running a Local Resource Management System
  
  o For a Storage Element (nordugrid-se) Grid resource, you will only
    need a Unix box with some storage capacity.

  o For a client any recent Unix box will do


-Availability-

The middleware is free to be deployed anywhere by anybody. Pre-built
binary releases for a dozen of Linux platforms can be downloaded from
ftp.nordugrid.org.

The software is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The NorduGrid repository hosts the source code, and provides all the
required external software which are not part of a standard Linux
distribution.


-Installation notes-

NorduGrid ARC middleware has two main components: the server and the
client part. Server is typically installed on a computing resource by
a system administrator, while the client can be set up anywhere and
needs no system administrator privileges. Detailed installation
instructions are distributed with the middleware documentation and are
available at the Web site:

  o Server: http://www.nordugrid.org/documents/ng-server-install.html
 
  o Client: http://www.nordugrid.org/documents/ng-client-install.html


-Known issues-
  
  o Currently the only fully supported LRMS are the PBS flavors. 

  o Some server-side services require root privileges.
  
  o No explicit support for clusters without a shared file system.
  
  o Portability is limited by the Globus Toolkit 2 libraries which
    means the middleware is restricted to few Unixes and is tested
    only on Linux.
    
  o Storage Element is limited to disk arrays.
  
  o No satisfactory accounting logging and bookkeeping system is
    provided.
  
  o No cluster-level sandboxing is provided for grid jobs apart from
    the standard Unix access controls. No fine grained authorization
    for computing resources.
  
  o No secure access to the information system. 
    
  o Configuration could be improved.


-Support-

User support and site installation assistance is provided via the
request tracking system available at nordugrid-support@nordugrid.org.
In addition, NorduGrid runs a couple of mailing lists, among which the
nordugrid-discuss mailing list is a general forum for all kind of
issues related to the ARC/NorduGrid middleware.

NorduGrid deploys the Bugzilla problem tracking system. Feature and
enhancement requests, as well as problems, should be reported there.

Contact information is kept updated on the www.nordugrid.org web site.


-Acknowledgments-

  o NorduNet2 programme for early support.
  
  o High Energy Physics departments of the following universities:
    Niels Bohr Institute, Lund University, Oslo University, Uppsala
    University, Bergen University, Royal Institute of Technology,
    Stockholm University and Helsinki Institute of Physics, for
    hosting the collaboration.
    
  o Nordic Council of Ministers for occasional support.
