GTPE: A Thread Programming Environment for the Grid

Grid computing has emerged as a viable method for solving computational and data intensive problems, applicable over various domains from business computing to scientific research. However, grid environments are largely heterogeneous, distributed and dynamic, increasing the complexities involved in developing grid applications. Several software constructs have been developed to provide programming environments that hide these complexities, simplifying grid application development. In this paper, we present the Grid Thread Programming Environment (GTPE) for the Gridbus Broker [1], a software grid resource broker developed at the GRIDS Lab, University of Melbourne. GTPE is implemented in pure Java and consists of a thread library that interacts with the Gridbus broker to provide transparent access to grid services. As such, GTPE provides a finer level of application control while freeing the developer from the complexities introduced by grid resource management. This paper describes architecture, overall design, implementation and performance evaluation of the grid thread programming environment