End-To-End Cache System for Grid Computing: Design and Efficiency Analysis of a High-Throughput Bioinformatic Docking Application

Abstract

Cache techniques are an efficient tool to reduce latency times in transfer operations through Grid systems. Although different approximations to introduce cache facilities into Grid computing have already been studied, they require intrusive modifications of Grid software and hardware. Here, we propose an end-to-end cache system that is implemented over scheduling services. This cache system requires neither changes in the Grid software nor introduction of new software in the Grid resources. Parallel Grid adaptation of many high-throughput computing applications that use the same data intensively could enjoy great benefits from our cache system. The maintenance of cacheable data in the resources of already-executed tasks allows faster executions of future tasks assigned to the same resources. To analyze the performance of our end-to-end cache system, we tested it with a new protein—protein docking application. The obtained results confirm our cache system’s robustness and efficiency gain for this kind of high-throughput application.