UNICORE
Encyclopedia
UNICORE is a Grid computing
technology that provides seamless, secure, and intuitive access to distributed Grid resources such as supercomputers or cluster systems and information stored in databases. UNICORE was developed in two projects funded by the German ministry for education and research (BMBF). In various European-funded projects UNICORE has evolved to a full-grown and well-tested Grid middleware system over the years. UNICORE is used in daily production at several supercomputer
centers worldwide. Beyond this production usage, UNICORE serves as a solid basis in many European and international research projects. The UNICORE technology is open source under BSD licence and available at SourceForge
, where new releases are published on a regular basis.
was first introduced in the book "The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure" at the end of 1998. Already in 1997, the development of UNICORE was initiated to enable German supercomputer centers to provide to the users a vertically integrated Grid middleware solution as a "ready to use" alternative for the Globus Toolkit
. The first prototype of UNICORE was developed in the German UNICORE project, while the foundations for the current production version were laid in the follow-up project UNICORE Plus, which ended in 2002.
Follow-up projects proceeded at European level which extended the functionality and worked towards providing implementations of OGF
standards. These resulted in the release of UNICORE 6, a fully web-services enabled release, on 28 August 2007.
that exploits all services offered by the underlying server tiers. Abstract Job Objects (AJO), the implementation of UNICORE's job model concept, are used to communicate with the server tier. An AJO contains platform and site independent descriptions of computational and data related tasks, resource information, and workflow specifications. The sending and receiving of AJOs and attached files within UNICORE is managed by the UNICORE Protocol Layer (UPL) that is placed on top of the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. The user of an UNICORE Grid does not need to know how these protocols are implemented, as the UNICORE Client assists the user in creating complex, interdependent jobs. For more experienced users a Command Line Interface (CLI) is also available. Both, the UNICORE Client and CLI, provide the functionalities to create and monitor jobs that can be executed on any UNICORE site (Usite) without requiring any modifications, including data management functions like import, export, or transfer of files from one target system to another. In addition, the UNICORE plugin technology allows the creation of application-specific interfaces inside the UNICORE client.
As the single secure entry point the Gateway controls the access to a Usite by accepting and authenticating all requests for server functionality. The Gateway forwards incoming requests to the underlying Network Job Supervisor (NJS) of a Vsite (UNICORE Virtual site) for further processing. A Vsite identifies a particular set of Grid resources at a Usite and is controlled by a NJS. UNICORE supports different system architectures and gives an organization full control over its resources. Vsites may consist of a single supercomputer or a Linux cluster. If more than one resource is operated by an organization there can be one Vsite for each resource inside one Usite. The NJS incarnates an abstract job description received in an AJO to a target system specific job. The target system tier consists of the Target System Interface (TSI), which interfaces with the underlying local resource management system.
certificates issued by a trusted Certification Authority (CA). These certificates are used to provide a single sign-on in the UNICORE client, i.e. no further password requests are handed to the user. In addition the certificates are used for authentication and authorization, including the mapping of UNICORE user certificates to local accounts, e.g. Unix
uid/gid, and for signing AJOs, which are sent over SSL based communication channels across 'insecure' internet links. Using X.509 certificates is one example for the consideration of well-known standards, e.g. released by the Global Grid Forum (GGF), within the UNICORE architecture. In addition, UNICORE meets the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)
concept following the paradigm of 'everything being a service'.
are also using UNICORE as the basis for their work and research, like in the OpenMolGRID or Chemomentum project.
The idea of "everything being a service" combined with the achievements of the Grid community led to stateful Web Services which enable a new approach to the design of modern Grid architectures. The integration of Web Services techniques and UNICORE is the main goal of the UniGrids project to realise an architecture of loosely-coupled UNICORE components while keeping its 'end-to-end' nature and strong security. The expertise and experience gained in developing the UNICORE software is contributed to the NextGRID project, which develops an architecture for future generation Grids.
All components of the UNICORE technology are open source software under BSD license and can be downloaded from the SourceForge repository. An online installation guide including a certificate assistant, a user manual, and example jobs help users getting started. Today UNICORE is successfully used in production environments, e.g. within the John von Neumann-Institute for Computing (NIC) to access a 1312-processor IBM
p690 supercomputer and a Cray XD1 cluster system. The users of these resources come from a broad field of scientific domains including e.g. astrophysics
, quantum physics, medicine
, biology
, computational chemistry
, and climatology
. Within the European DEISA
project leading HPC centers in Europe joined to deploy and operate a pervasive, distributed, heterogeneous, multi-tera-scale supercomputing platform. UNICORE is used as the Grid middleware to access the DEISA resources.
Grid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
technology that provides seamless, secure, and intuitive access to distributed Grid resources such as supercomputers or cluster systems and information stored in databases. UNICORE was developed in two projects funded by the German ministry for education and research (BMBF). In various European-funded projects UNICORE has evolved to a full-grown and well-tested Grid middleware system over the years. UNICORE is used in daily production at several supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
centers worldwide. Beyond this production usage, UNICORE serves as a solid basis in many European and international research projects. The UNICORE technology is open source under BSD licence and available at SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
, where new releases are published on a regular basis.
History
The concept of Grid computingGrid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
was first introduced in the book "The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure" at the end of 1998. Already in 1997, the development of UNICORE was initiated to enable German supercomputer centers to provide to the users a vertically integrated Grid middleware solution as a "ready to use" alternative for the Globus Toolkit
Globus Toolkit
The Globus Toolkit, currently at version 5, is an open source toolkit for building computing grids developed and provided by the Globus Alliance.-Standards implementation:The Globus Toolkit is an implementation of the following standards:...
. The first prototype of UNICORE was developed in the German UNICORE project, while the foundations for the current production version were laid in the follow-up project UNICORE Plus, which ended in 2002.
Follow-up projects proceeded at European level which extended the functionality and worked towards providing implementations of OGF
Open Grid Forum
The Open Grid Forum is a community of users, developers, and vendors for standardization of grid computing. It was formed in 2006 in a merger of the Global Grid Forum and the Enterprise Grid Alliance. The OGSA, OGSI, and JSDL standards were created by the OGF...
standards. These resulted in the release of UNICORE 6, a fully web-services enabled release, on 28 August 2007.
UNICORE-Related Projects
- UNICORE
- UNICORE Plus
- EUROGRID http://www.eurogrid.org/
- D-GridD-GridThe D-Grid Initiative builds a sustainable grid infrastructure for education and research in Germany. The D-Grid infrastructure will help to establish methods of e-Science in three core areas:* Grid Computing...
http://www.d-grid.de/index.php?id=1&L=1 - GRIP
- OpenMolGRID
- UniGrids http://www.unigrids.org/
- VIOLA http://www.viola-testbed.de/
- DEISA http://www.deisa.eu/
- A-Ware
- Chemomentum
- OMII-Europe
Architecture
The architecture of UNICORE consists of three layers, namely user, server, and target system tier. The user tier is represented by the UNICORE Client, a Graphical User Interface (GUI)Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
that exploits all services offered by the underlying server tiers. Abstract Job Objects (AJO), the implementation of UNICORE's job model concept, are used to communicate with the server tier. An AJO contains platform and site independent descriptions of computational and data related tasks, resource information, and workflow specifications. The sending and receiving of AJOs and attached files within UNICORE is managed by the UNICORE Protocol Layer (UPL) that is placed on top of the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. The user of an UNICORE Grid does not need to know how these protocols are implemented, as the UNICORE Client assists the user in creating complex, interdependent jobs. For more experienced users a Command Line Interface (CLI) is also available. Both, the UNICORE Client and CLI, provide the functionalities to create and monitor jobs that can be executed on any UNICORE site (Usite) without requiring any modifications, including data management functions like import, export, or transfer of files from one target system to another. In addition, the UNICORE plugin technology allows the creation of application-specific interfaces inside the UNICORE client.
As the single secure entry point the Gateway controls the access to a Usite by accepting and authenticating all requests for server functionality. The Gateway forwards incoming requests to the underlying Network Job Supervisor (NJS) of a Vsite (UNICORE Virtual site) for further processing. A Vsite identifies a particular set of Grid resources at a Usite and is controlled by a NJS. UNICORE supports different system architectures and gives an organization full control over its resources. Vsites may consist of a single supercomputer or a Linux cluster. If more than one resource is operated by an organization there can be one Vsite for each resource inside one Usite. The NJS incarnates an abstract job description received in an AJO to a target system specific job. The target system tier consists of the Target System Interface (TSI), which interfaces with the underlying local resource management system.
Security Model
The security within UNICORE relies on the usage of permanent X.509X.509
In cryptography, X.509 is an ITU-T standard for a public key infrastructure and Privilege Management Infrastructure . X.509 specifies, amongst other things, standard formats for public key certificates, certificate revocation lists, attribute certificates, and a certification path validation...
certificates issued by a trusted Certification Authority (CA). These certificates are used to provide a single sign-on in the UNICORE client, i.e. no further password requests are handed to the user. In addition the certificates are used for authentication and authorization, including the mapping of UNICORE user certificates to local accounts, e.g. Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
uid/gid, and for signing AJOs, which are sent over SSL based communication channels across 'insecure' internet links. Using X.509 certificates is one example for the consideration of well-known standards, e.g. released by the Global Grid Forum (GGF), within the UNICORE architecture. In addition, UNICORE meets the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)
Open Grid Services Architecture
The Open Grid Services Architecture describes an architecture for a service-oriented grid computing environment for business and scientific use, developed within the Global Grid Forum...
concept following the paradigm of 'everything being a service'.
UNICORE in Research & Production
Many European and international research projects base their Grid software implementations on UNICORE, e.g. EUROGRID, GRIP, OpenMolGRID, VIOLA, or the Japanese NaReGI project. These projects extended or are extending the set of core UNICORE functions, including new features specific to their research or project focus. The goals of such projects are not only limited to the computer science community. Other scientific domains such as bioengineering or computational chemistryComputational chemistry
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...
are also using UNICORE as the basis for their work and research, like in the OpenMolGRID or Chemomentum project.
The idea of "everything being a service" combined with the achievements of the Grid community led to stateful Web Services which enable a new approach to the design of modern Grid architectures. The integration of Web Services techniques and UNICORE is the main goal of the UniGrids project to realise an architecture of loosely-coupled UNICORE components while keeping its 'end-to-end' nature and strong security. The expertise and experience gained in developing the UNICORE software is contributed to the NextGRID project, which develops an architecture for future generation Grids.
All components of the UNICORE technology are open source software under BSD license and can be downloaded from the SourceForge repository. An online installation guide including a certificate assistant, a user manual, and example jobs help users getting started. Today UNICORE is successfully used in production environments, e.g. within the John von Neumann-Institute for Computing (NIC) to access a 1312-processor IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
p690 supercomputer and a Cray XD1 cluster system. The users of these resources come from a broad field of scientific domains including e.g. astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
, quantum physics, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, computational chemistry
Computational chemistry
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...
, and climatology
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
. Within the European DEISA
DEISA
The Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications is a European Union supercomputer project. It is made up of a consortium of eleven leading national supercomputing centres from seven European countries...
project leading HPC centers in Europe joined to deploy and operate a pervasive, distributed, heterogeneous, multi-tera-scale supercomputing platform. UNICORE is used as the Grid middleware to access the DEISA resources.