Cao, Junwei (2001) Agent-based resource management for grid computing. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

A computational grid is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides
dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end
computational capability. An ideal grid environment should provide access to the
available resources in a seamless manner. Resource management is an important
infrastructural component of a grid computing environment. The overall aim of
resource management is to efficiently schedule applications that need to utilise the
available resources in the grid environment. Such goals within the high
performance community will rely on accurate performance prediction capabilities.
An existing toolkit, known as PACE (Performance Analysis and Characterisation
Environment), is used to provide quantitative data concerning the performance of
sophisticated applications running on high performance resources. In this thesis an
ASCI (Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative) kernel application, Sweep3D,
is used to illustrate the PACE performance prediction capabilities. The validation
results show that a reasonable accuracy can be obtained, cross-platform
comparisons can be easily undertaken, and the process benefits from a rapid
evaluation time. While extremely well-suited for managing a locally distributed
multi-computer, the PACE functions do not map well onto a wide-area
environment, where heterogeneity, multiple administrative domains, and communication irregularities dramatically complicate the job of resource
management. Scalability and adaptability are two key challenges that must be
addressed.
In this thesis, an A4 (Agile Architecture and Autonomous Agents) methodology is
introduced for the development of large-scale distributed software systems with
highly dynamic behaviours. An agent is considered to be both a service provider
and a service requestor. Agents are organised into a hierarchy with service
advertisement and discovery capabilities. There are four main performance
metrics for an A4 system: service discovery speed, agent system efficiency,
workload balancing, and discovery success rate.
Coupling the A4 methodology with PACE functions, results in an Agent-based
Resource Management System (ARMS), which is implemented for grid
computing. The PACE functions supply accurate performance information (e. g.
execution time) as input to a local resource scheduler on the fly. At a meta-level,
agents advertise their service information and cooperate with each other to
discover available resources for grid-enabled applications. A Performance
Monitor and Advisor (PMA) is also developed in ARMS to optimise the
performance of the agent behaviours.
The PMA is capable of performance modelling and simulation about the agents in
ARMS and can be used to improve overall system performance. The PMA can
monitor agent behaviours in ARMS and reconfigure them with optimised
strategies, which include the use of ACTs (Agent Capability Tables), limited
service lifetime, limited scope for service advertisement and discovery, agent
mobility and service distribution, etc.
The main contribution of this work is that it provides a methodology and
prototype implementation of a grid Resource Management System (RMS). The
system includes a number of original features that cannot be found in existing
research solutions.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Computational grids (Computer systems), High performance computing, Intelligent agents (Computer software)
Official Date:	October 2001
Dates:	Date Event October 2001 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Computer Science
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Nudd, Graham R. ; Kerbyson, Darren James ; Jarvis, Stephen
Extent:	xv, 190 leaves
Language:	eng

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