Virtualization, a technology first developed for partitioning the resources of mainframe computers, has seen a resurgence in popularity in the realm of commodity workstation computers. This paper introduces MaestroVC, a system which explores a novel use of VMs as the building blocks of entire Virtual Clusters (VCs). Virtualization of entire clusters is beneficial because existing parallel code can run without modification in the virtual environment. At the same time, inserting a layer of software between a virtual cluster and native hardware allows for security enforcement and flexible resource management in a manner transparent to running parallel code. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of Maestro-VC, and give the results of some preliminary performance experiments.

Likewise, intra-cluster communication should take place as much as possible using high-performance cluster interconnects, resorting to lower performance wide-area protocols only when necessary. This thesis examines the feasibility of deploying tightly-coupled parallel applications in Grid computing environments. A desired outcome of this work is the capability of delivering application performance in a Grid environment that is on par with the performance within a single cluster while simultaneously requiring few or no modifications to application software. To that end, the thesis explores techniques that can be deployed effectively at the runtime system level and applied to a variety of application decomposition styles. iv Where would any of us be without teachers — without people who have passion for their art or their science or their craft and love it right in front of us? What would any of us do without teachers passing on to us what they know is essential about life?

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