Running Running a Scientific Experimenta Scientific Experiment

on the Grid on the Grid

Vilnius, 13rd May, 2008

by Tomasz Szepieniec IFJ PAN & CYFRONET

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Scientific Experiment

■ What it is?

set of observations performed in the context of solving a

particular problem or question, to retain or falsify a hypothesis

or research concerning phenomena. (wikipedia)

computations which a researcher need to run, to make

progress in his/her research

■ Examples:

Monte Carlo simulations

Massive protein folding for testing releases of folding software

Simulation of a scheduling process using a new algorithm

Prepare an advance visualization of simulation results

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Why running it on Grid?

■ Because time matters

Single sequential job?

► NO - a processor on your desktop has the same power

Make sense if the process is done in parallel

► high throughput computing

► multithreaded, parallel computation is our future!

■ Storing and sharing huge data is now possible

■ Access to specific machines

hardware supporting specific type of computation

► huge parallel installations

software available for lower/no cost

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius 4

GAUSSIAN VO

• VO for GAUSSIAN users

• operated by in EGEEII &III by CYFRONET (Krakow, Poland)

• For users – everyone that accept the policy can join

– easy to start – ready scripts..– http://egee.grid.cyfronet.pl/Applications/gaussian-vo/

• For admins– sites with GAUSSIAN site licence can join– http://egee.grid.cyfronet.pl/Applications/gaussian-vo-how-to-support/

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Working group view: miracle of sharing resources

■ If there is a shortage of resource, SHARING is the solution

■ Typical stages of an experiment: Preparing, Computing, Analyzing, (Writing a paper)

It does not refer to some researcher (e.g. solving Sierpinski problem)

■ Sharing gives you more than you can obtain by keeping your part only

demand

resourcesUnused resources

Unmet demand

Figure copied from P. Plaszczak „Grid Computing”

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Jump in?

Before jumping see the other side…

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Additonal effort required

■ Access to data becomes transfers

■ You should think about the following: How many times I need to use it? Location and size of data Speed-up including overheads

► Parallel execution

Licensed software Other people that uses produced data Security level required

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Also technical problems

■ Job sometimes fails – resubmission is required

■ Some sites are just wrongly configured!

■ We should not overflow VOs but use it efficiently

■ In some failures only the application operator

should make decision what to do

■ Jobs are to quick (e.g. 10min)= submission

overhead to large – we need put more workload

to single grid job

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Virtual Labolatory is all we need

Figure copied from EU IST Virolab Project

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Guideline #1

It is better to spend 60 minutes on preparing a tool

than 3 minutes every day of doing work manually

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Example: Rendering Application

by Krzysztof Abramowicz, Cyfronet

■ Application: Visualization for L-system editor; user want to quickly create movie showing the results.

■ Goal: Limit movie generation time■ Mean: Make parallel scenes rendering on the grid, using interactive

connections between master and workers

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Results: Quick preview for user

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Guideline #2

The best possible grid is invisible.

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Example: Grid application without grids

by JUMC Team in EUChinaGrid Project, Kraków, Poland

T.Szepieniec AT cyfronet.pl; 13 May 2008, Grid Open Day, Vilnius

Kind suggestions of conclusions

■ For researchers:

To have more time for science, you need tools that improve

your efficiency. The grid is one of them.

■ For grid developers and industry:

Between an user and a grid middleware there is a gap that

you are to bridge with tools that hide all which is not

necessary for researcher to do science.