Advanced collaborative environments are one of the most important tools for interacting with colleagues distributed around the world. However, heterogeneous characteristics such as network transfer rates, computational abilities, and hierarchical systems make the seamless integration of distributed resources a challenge. This paper proposes the design of two network services, Collaborative Environment Network Service Architecture (CENSA) and Infrastructure (CENSI), that embed network services into various systems intelligently and elastically and support seamless advanced collaborative environments. We present a multilayered model for their current utilization and future development. We describe various network services and discuss some open issues.

This paper presents the motivation and design decisions for the Web Services Grid Application Framework (WS-GAF), which is a mapping of Grid architecture requirements onto the Web Services Architecture. The goal for WS-GAF is to describe a framework for building Grid applications that adheres to the principles of service-oriented architectures and utilises existing Web Services technologies. The proposed solution addresses issues including stateful interactions, logical resource naming, metadata, and lifetime management.

The current computational power demands and constraints of organizations have led to a new type of collaborative computing environment called Grid Computing [1]. Grid Computing is a new way of the parallel and distributed computing. With grid computing, an individual can unite pools of servers, storage systems and networks into a large system. End

In this paper we consider implementing optical burst switching as an alternative approach to meet computationally intensive Grid applications. Such architecture has been referred to as Grid-over-OBS (GoOBS). We first present a unique layered architecture for Grid-over-OBS and position OBS protocol stack within the framework of the layered Grid architecture. Then, we present a generic framework for anycast routing in the context of GoOBS when requests don't have explicit addresses and they can be serviced by any appropriate Grid resource. We develop several algorithms to support anycasting when only a single copy of a request is transmitted. Through simulation analysis, we show the performance of our anycast algorithms and compare them with the shortest-path unicast routing in which all jobs have specific addresses. In out performance analysis we focus on average end-toend delay and blocking probability of requests.

Abstract. This paper focuses on integrating IPv6 functionality into Grid systems. We outline the advantages of IPv6 and the benefit to Grid systems. We then introduce our methodology and our efforts to provide IPv6 support on Grid systems using the Globus Toolkit Version 3 as our concrete working example. The status of global Grid IPv6 activities is introduced. We conclude by summarising how to bring IPv6 into Grid systems.

In this paper we provide a motivation for Grid computing based on a vision to enable a collaborative research environment. Our vision goes beyond the connection of hardware resources. We argue that with an infrastructure such as the Grid, new modalities for collaborative research are enabled. We provide an overview showing why Grid research is difficult, and we present a number of management-related issues that must be addressed to make Grids a reality. We list projects that provide solutions to subsets of these issues.

Enabled by advances in grid and network computing architectures for the delivery of on-demand computing services, the vision of an e-services economy in which computing will be as ubiquitous as a utility is becoming a possibility in business computing. Major firms in the computing industry such as IBM, HP, and SUN Microsystems are focusing on agility and flexibility of computing resources and gearing up for their own versions of on-demand computing and IT outsourcing solutions. Successful business advent of these new computing models requires the development of appropriate pricing mechanisms that are consistent with the enabling technologies. Our paper presents preliminary research in this area, and introduces the notion of contingent auctions to address this lacuna. In contingent auctions, users bid for computing resources in an auction, but are relieved from the contract if demand is not realized. We study different mechanisms—ranging from an advancecommit (capacity reservation) to no-commit (pay-as-yougo)—under such demand uncertainty. We show how the different levels of commitment affect prices, revenues and resource utilization. Our initial results show promise and reiterate the need to address the availability-commitment dichotomy in the design of business models for on-demand computing and IT outsourcing.

Abstract. This paper introduces the concept of a dynamic key infrastructure for Grid. It utilises the properties of Identity-based Cryptography (IBC) to simplify key management techniques used in current Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) settings for Grid. This approach can offer greater simplicity, flexibility, and enhanced computation trade-offs. 1

This copy of the thesis has been supplied on the condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that the copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or the university (as may be appropriate). I hereby declare that the work presented in this the-sis was carried out by myself at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, except where due acknowledgement is made, and has not been submitted for any other degree.

There are many simulation environments around that can be used to simulate components of Grid Computing. There are also a few simulation environments that allow for data intensive jobs to be simulated. GridSim, with the Data.Grid extension, combines both of these simulation environments to allow simulation of data intensive jobs using Grid resources. GridSim is explored in this paper with an aim to simulate the Distributed Ontology Framework (DOF) in the Semantic Grid Environment. The DOF requires many data resources to be located as well as large scale processing to take place on the collected data. Several simulation environments are discussed and the similarities between the DOF and the GridSim environment are explored. Several simulations are carried out to show whether or not GridSIM is a suitable simulation environment for simulating the Distributed Ontology Framework. 1.