Re: [9fans] The 9grid.

[andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Chris Hollis-Locke wrote:

> Ok, the various nodes of 9grid will come under different admin domains
> but isn't there a single overarching domain - that for authentication, and
> who is responsible for it?
>

the way we see it now, there will be a single authentication server
(resembling Globus' certificates, i.e. you trust the authentication server
as you trust the certificate authority). by separate administrative domains
i mean that the machines here at UofC will be administered by people at the
UofC with regards to software, hardware and will still have our own
authentication domain for our own stuff. there's no root and we will not
give the hostowner password to anyone else :)

at any rate, Plan 9 is able to accomodate much wider range of authentication
mechanisms than globus, so don't be surprised if there isn't a centralised
authentication domain at all.

i'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense, but using paradigms from other
types of grids just messes it up -- it's much easier to think of it in plan9
terms:

there will be a few cpu servers across the world on which your jobs can
run if you're a 9grid user. that's all :)

as far as job submission, ron could be opposed to it, but running a
'centralized' cpu server, to which one's jobs go, is a good idea if you're
limited to a cluster. probably in 9grid we'll have a script which mounts all
available nodes' /proc and tells you which one is most idle, isn't that the
Plan 9 way? process migration hasn't arrived in Plan 9 (yet) but when it
does it probably wouldn't be too hard to accomodate (at least we know it'll
be simple).


caching and resource discovery are on the table, but i'm not sure i can talk
about that right now... ('ls' sounds much simpler than 'LDAP' though, doesn't
it? :)

andrey