Top-down definition of Network Centric Operating System features

Network (and grid, if we view grids as networks with specific middleware on top of the component processing node operating systems) programming is an hard task due to the necessity of taking into account network latencies and faults, dynamic node availability and load, performance/efficiency requirements and constrains, etc. Figure 1 Factorizing our long experience in the field of high performance, structured parallel programming models for workstation clusters/networks and grids, we propose to derive a sort of reduced instruction set to be included in a network centric operating system to support layered responsibility in the development of network/grid applications. We claim that the basic features needed to run grid applications is only a small set of features, including efficient data/file transfer, resource inventory/discovery, remote commanding, accounting and communication. We also claim that these few mechanisms can be exploited using a mix of static techniques (compiler based) and dynamic techniques (run time system based) to implement the programming model at hand, much in the sense the RISC processor instructions was exploited to implement completely different high level programming languages [1][2]. Therefore we propose to study an approach like the one summarized in Figure 1. Typical, effective grid applications should be studied t