edutain@grid

The Parallel and Distributed Systems (PVS) group led by Prof. Sergei Gorlatch is significantly involved in the edutain@grid project funded by the European Commission. The project is developing technologies and middleware components that will give access to the Grid as a dynamic platform for technology services for real-time interactive applications. A wide commercial use of the Grid is being facilitated and promoted by the developed solutions. Seven European partners from the industry and academia are involved in the edutain@grid project, developing technology, business models and marketing measures.

Motivation

For the past few years, Grid technology has been used successfully in academia to provide distributed resources. Grid technology enables the researchers to jointly use the available resources and to employ them on-demand, for example, for complex computer simulations. Grid technologies are also employed in the industry, for example in the risk analysis of financial service providers and in pharmaceutical research.

However, Grid techniques have not reached a breakthrough so far, since development, deployment and starting of an application are still very complex and, at the same time, it is difficult to ensure that security and QoS specifications are met in the Grid environment. Furthermore, a killer application which could serve as technology enabler for a widespread employment of Grid techniques is still missing. In this context, Real-Time Online Interactive Applications (ROIA), which so far have not been considered by Grid developments, could be found to be important, including modern Multiplayer-Real-Time games and interactive applications for training and simulations. They have to compute lots of data and user actions, with variable numbers of users and under strict time requirements. Therefore, they can make optimal use of the resources made available dynamically by a Grid.

Objectives of the project

  • Develop technologies which make the resources and services of the Grid accessible for quick execution of performance-critical ROIA.
  • Develop optimized techniques for communication, QoS, management and scaling, necessary for fast and reliable execution of ROIA in a distributed Grid architecture.
  • Develop a middleware which brings together service providers and users of ROIA, supports reasonable business models and, at the same time, observes QoS specifications.
  • Develop all the techniques under the assumption of simple usability which allows both the developers and the users to easily access the services and resources of the Grid.
  • The employment of the developed techniques should be cost-effective for developers and service providers, i.e., the newly developed marketing areas are profitable.
  • Disseminate the technologies developed in the edutain@grid project among developers and users and bring them to market.
  • The University of Münster is responsible, in particular, for the development of optimized techniques of communication, QoS, management and scaling, which enable the ROIA to be executed on the Grid. In this field, students, too, can find exciting challenges imparting knowledge and qualification in the booming area of parallel and distributed systems.

The University of Münster is responsible, in particular, for the development of optimized techniques of communication, QoS, management and scaling, which enable the ROIA to be executed on the Grid. In this field, students, too, can find exciting challenges imparting knowledge and qualification in the booming area of parallel and distributed systems.

Opportunities for students

In the area of the edutain@grid project, we offer diploma thesis which, due to the advancing development of edutain@grid, deal with up-to-date applications and research in the field of parallel and distributed systems. Furthermore, in the upcoming winter semester 2009, we are offering an interesting Project seminar where the students, by means of the edutain@grid middleware, will design and realize a modern grid-compliant Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG).

Contact persons: Frank Glinka and Alexander Ploss, room № 710.

edutain@grid partners

Participants at the University of Muenster

Publications