Grid Computing for Developers (Programming) [Paperback]

Vladimir Silva (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programming | Publication Date: December 30, 2005

Many industry analysts believe that grid computing will be the next big technology wave. It is so promising that major technology companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun are allocating significant resources for grid research and development. Grid Computing for Developers explores the evolution of grid computing from the early distributed computing paradigm to the modern grid environments. Most of today's grid environments will be examined including OGSA, Resource Managers, and MPI. The book also explores today's de-facto standards for grid computing including a comprehensive guide to the Globus Toolkit for developers covering installation, system administration, development guides for grid services, open grid services architectures for OGSI and OGSA-DAI, commodity grid kits for Java, Perl, and OGSA-C, and performance evaluation tests. A significant amount of source code samples accompany each chapter. Grid Computing for Developers is an ideal resource for computer scientists and researchers, graduate students, and IT professionals looking to further expand their grid computing skills.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Vladimir Silva (Richmond, VA) holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from Middle Tennessee State University and has worked for four years at IBM as a Software Engineer. He holds two top-level certifications in Software Development (MCSD-Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, OCP-Oracle Application Developer) and belongs to two National Honor Societies. He has also published numerous articles for IBM developerWorks.

Product Details

• Paperback: 547 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (December 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584504242
• ISBN-13: 978-1584504245
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,266,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vladimir Silva was born in Quito, Ecuador. He received a System's Analyst degree from the Polytechnic Institute of the Army in 1994. In the same year, he came to the United States as an exchange student pursuing an M.S. degree in Computer Science at Middle Tennessee State University. After graduation, he joined the IBM WebAhead technology think tank. His interests include Grid Computing, Neural Nets, and Artificial Intelligence. He also holds numerous IT certifications including OCP, MCSD, and MCP. He has written many technical articles for IBM developerWorks in the fields of grid computing, and security.

Here is a list Vladimir's technical papers:

1. Crunch big numbers with GT3 using a quadratic sieve. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-factor/

2. Advanced UI design for GNOME. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-slik/

3. Globus Toolkit 4 Early Access: WSRF. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-gt4early/

4. Secure Java apps on Linux using MD5 crypt. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-md5crypt/

5. Design skinnable Java UIs for media players with native performance. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-slik/

6. Manage X.509 certificates in your grid with Java Certificate Services.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-jsc/

7. IBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: GT3 and WebSphere compatibility
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0310_silva/silva.html

8.Using Java with Globus Grid Security Infrastructure
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-ggsi.html

9. The Master Managed Job Factory Service (MMJFS)
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-factory/

10. Set up a grid job scheduler with the Globus Toolkit 3.2.x
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-sched/

11. Build a data grid with the Storage Resource Broker.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-srb/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of good grid stuff, December 10, 2005

By 

Ian "Sharky" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grid Computing for Developers (Programming) (Paperback)

This book is preety darn good. I covers a broad range of grid topics such as: grid middleware, resource managers, schedulers, parallel computing with MPI, etc.
I specially liked the chapter on grid enabled portal development. It has helped me a lot at work. There is also a comprehensive guide to the Globus toolkit (GT3, GT4, WSRF) that is full of samples, transcripts and troubleshooting tips.

Overall, I think this book is a great tool for the grid engineer and developer.

Cheers.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Overview and Enough to Get Started, March 2, 2006

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grid Computing for Developers (Programming) (Paperback)

Grid computing promises to be the next big wave in high performance computing. While the power of today's PC's has gotten relatively huge, easily passing the supercomputers of not so long ago, there are still certain applications in weather, nuclear physics, bioinformatics and other areas where far more computing power is needed.

The first step was to take a bunch of PC's and cluster them together to make a more powerful system. When these large massively parallel systems were built, it then became clear that taking several of these from around the country or even the world could produce 'systems' of considerably more power.

The answer was 'The Grid.' Funded by the US Government, work began several years ago to produce the basic tools needed to make Grid computing work. This book clearly explains, in a practical sense, what Grid computing has become today. It gives some background and description of grid computing. Then it goes into the software that has been written that enables the practical use of such systems.

The book is comprehensive enough that it could be used by students or administrators that are working with or even just considering using a grid architecture.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good comprehensive development guide for GT 3 & 4, January 3, 2006

By 

Red Dragon - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grid Computing for Developers (Programming) (Paperback)

This book covers a lot of stuff! From installation transcripts for GT 2,3,4, scheduler installation, customization to Grid portal development. The book has little theory but I found some interesting numbers on the potential growth of the grid computing market over the next few years. It has a lot of source code and plenty of images to support it thus it is targeted to software engineers and developers involved on grid computing.

There is some complex math (related to large integer factorization) which is hard to understand for the novice but overall I give it five stars. All major protocols used by the globus toolkit are explained: resource allocation, data management, and security.

P.S: There is also a few chapters dedicated to the Message Passing Interface (MPI) with examples and some integration tips with the Globus Resource Allocation Manager (GRAM) which I found unique.