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The essence of Grid computing is the transparent sharing and effective utilisation of computing resources that may be under different administrative domains. Such resources can be hardware (processors, storage, networks), software or data. If this is to be taken seriously mechanisms are needed that will enable resource owners to make their facilities available and for users to discover and use these resources effectively. This, in turn, requires applications to be constructed in a manner that endows them with sufficient self-knowledge to be able to mapped transparently onto the best resources currently available.
As part of our activities as the London e-Science Centre we are developing such a framework: ICENI - Imperial College e-Science Networked Infrastructure - that allows resources to be advertised via Jini spaces and applications to be constructed from pre-defined components. The characteristics of both resources and applications are documented using XML schemas, which supports an intelligent process of resource discovery and application mapping.
This talk will outline the current status and experience of the ICENI architecture and its relationship to other Grid middleware such as the OGSA.
