Components for High Performance Grid Programming in Grid.it

This chapter presents the main ideas of the high-performance component-based Grid programming environment of the Grid.it project. High-performance components are characterized by a programming model that integrates the concepts of structured parallelism, component interaction, compositionality, and adaptivity. We show that ASSIST, the prototype of parallel programming environment currently under development at our group, is a suitable basis to capture all the desired features of the component model in a flexible and efficient manner. For the sake of interoperability, ASSIST modules or programs are automatically encapsulated in standard frameworks; currently, we are experimenting Web Services and the CORBA Component Model. Grid applications, built as compositions of ASSIST components and possibly other existing (legacy) components, are supported by an innovative Grid Abstract Machine, that includes essential abstractions of standard middleware services and a hierarchical Application Manager (AM). AM supports static allocation and dynamic reallocation of adaptive applications according to a performance contract, a reconfiguration strategy, and a performance model