Alchemi: A .NET-based Grid Computing Framework and its Integration into Global Grids

Abstract

Computational grids that couple geographically distributed resources are becoming the de-facto computing platform for solving large-scale problems in science, engineering, and commerce. Software to enable grid computing has been primarily written for Unix-class operating systems, thus severely limiting the ability to effectively utilize the computing resources of the vast majority of desktop computers i.e. those running variants of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Addressing Windows-based grid computing is particularly important from the software industry's viewpoint where interest in grids is emerging rapidly. Microsoft's .NET Framework has become near-ubiquitous for implementing commercial distributed systems for Windows-based platforms, positioning it as the ideal platform for grid computing in this context. In this paper we present Alchemi, a .NET-based grid computing framework that provides the runtime machinery and programming environment required to construct desktop grids and develop grid applications. It allows flexible application composition by supporting an object-oriented grid application programming model in addition to a grid job model. Cross-platform support is provided via a web services interface and a flexible execution model supports dedicated and non-dedicated (voluntary) execution by grid nodes.