Object Based Middleware for Grid Computing

Abstract

Problem statement: "Grid" computing has emerged as an important new field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing by its focus on large-scale resource sharing, innovative applications and, in some cases, high-performance orientation. The role of middleware is to ease the task of designing, programming and managing distributed applications by providing a simple, consistent and integrated distributed programming environment. Essentially, middleware is a distributed software layer, which abstracts over the complexity and heterogeneity of the underlying distributed environment with its multitude of network technologies, machine architectures, operating systems and programming languages. Approach: This study brought out the development of supportive middleware to manage resources and distributed workload across multiple administrative boundaries is of central importance to Grid computing. Active middleware services that perform lookup, scheduling and staging are being developed that allow users to identify and utilize appropriate resources that provide sustainable system and user-level qualities of service. Results: Different middleware platforms support different programming models. Perhaps the most popular model is object-based middleware in which applications are structured into objects that interact via location transparent method invocation. Conclusion: The Object Management Group’s CORBA platform offer an Interface Definition Language (IDL) which is used to abstract over the fact that objects can be implemented in any suitable programming language, an object request broker which is responsible for transparently directing method invocations to the appropriate target object and a set of services such as naming, time, transactions, replication which further enhance the programming environment.