Lessons learned through driving science applications in the PRAGMA grid

Abstract

This paper describes the coordination, design and implementation of the PRAGMA Grid. Applications in genomics, quantum mechanics, climate simulation, organic chemistry and molecular simulation have driven the middleware requirements, and the PRAGMA Grid provides a mechanism for science and technology teams to collaborate, for grids to interoperate and for international users to share software beyond the essential, de facto standard Globus core. Several middleware tools developed by researchers within PRAGMA have been deployed in the PRAGMA grid and this has enabled significant insights, improvements and new collaborations to flourish. In this paper, we describe how human factors, resource availability and performance issues have affected the middleware, applications and the grid design. We also describe how middleware components in grid monitoring, grid accounting and grid file systems have dealt with some of the major characteristics of our grid. We also briefly describe a number of mechanisms that we have employed to make software easily available to PRAGMA and global grid communities.