UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM presents "Introduction to Grid Computing and Related Research Issues" speaker: Prof. Alexander Shafarenko Computer Science Dept. University of Hertfordshire 26 February 2003 (Wednesday) Lecture Theatre E351 Hatfield Campus 3 - 4 pm Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available. Everyone is Welcome to Attend [Space Permitting] Abstract: This talk will focus on the emerging "grid computing" technology. Grid computing is an approach to disctributed use of computational resources in dynamic, virtual organisations. Such organisations could be groups of scientists sharing processor cycles on their machines, a community using a distributed data store, or merely a set of sensors used in a single distributed experiment, to name but a few. The term "computational grid" is introduced by analogy with electricity grids, where a set of resource providers (i.e. electric power stations) is connected with a set of consumers by a connectivity fabric (i.e. the electricity grid). This analogy is very superficial but the term is descriptive enough to convey the idea. Research and development effort in grid computing is aimed at software architecture, protocols and API/SDK for resource sharing, communication and coordination of computational tasks. Additionally, a grid security infrastructure is being developed in order to provide a single sign-on, assure the safety of user codes and data, and to protect sensitive data from unauthorised access. We shall take a closer look at the Globus toolkit developed at the Argonne National Lab and the philosophy behind it, as it is a prime candidate for becoming the standard for grid computing. We will also delineate the position of grid research at UH relative to these developments and briefly describe the state of our project. ----- Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium Abstracts On-line: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq/