Open Science Grid Consortium
The Open Science Grid Consortium is an organization that administers the Open Science Grid. The OSG is a grid of technological resources, facilitating distributed computing for research purposes in various disciplines. Founded in 2004, the consortium is comprised of service and resource providers, researchers from universities and national laboratories, as well as computing centers across the United States. Members independently own and manage the resources which make up the distributed facility, and consortium agreements provide the framework for technological and organizational integration.
Use
The OSG is used by scientists and researchers for data analysis tasks which are too computationally-intensive for a single data center or supercomputer. While most of the grid's resources are used for particle physics, research teams from disciplines like biology, chemistry, astronomy, and Geographic information systems are currently using the grid to analyze data. Research using the grid's resources has been published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry.Benjamin, Kenneth M. (2007-11-01). "Virial Coefficients of Polarizable Water: Applications to Thermodynamic Properties and Molecular Clustering†". The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. 111 (43): 16021–16027. doi:10.1021/jp0743166. Retrieved 2009-03-02. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) and the Journal of Chemical Information and ModelingDamjanović, Ana (2008-10-27). "Open Science Grid Study of the Coupling between Conformation and Water Content in the Interior of a Protein". Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 48 (10): 2021–2029. doi:10.1021/ci800263c. Retrieved 2009-03-02. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
Large Hadron Collider
The Open Science Grid was created in order to facilitate data analysis from the Large Hadron Collider, and about 70% of its 300,000 computing-hours per day are dedicated to the analysis of data from particle colliders.Gaudin, Sharon (2008-11-09). "Collider probes universe's mysteries at the speed of light". ComputerWorld. Retrieved 2009-03-02. Once data has been collected and distributed by the LHC Computing Grid, the Open Science Grid assists physicists from institutions around the world in analysis. The grid has been designed so that resources and data are shared automatically:
It's really driven not so much by where the physicists come from, but what their interests are. Physicists will be able to submit jobs to this distributed network of centers and not worry about which center that their job is actually going to run on, because the data for their task will already be there.
— Robert Gardner, Senior Research Associate at The University of Chicago
Shread, Paul (2004-11-21). "Open Science Grid Consortium Declares Grid3 A Success". GridComputingPlanet. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
Architecture
In total, the OSG comprises over 25,000 computers with over 43,000 processors, most of which are running a distribution of Linux.Gaudin, Sharon (2008-11-15). "Worldwide grid evaluating collider test results". InfoWorld. Retrieved 2009-03-02. 72 institutions - including 42 universities - are members of the consortium, contributing resources to the grid. "Members and Partners". Retrieved 2009-03-02. There are 90 distinct computational and storage nodes in the grid, which are distributed across the United States and Brazil."VO Resource Selector". Open Science Grid. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
Peerage
The grid is peered with other grids, including TeraGrid, LHC Computing Grid and EGEE. This allows data and resources from those grids to be shared.
Study
The grid's architecture has been studied by many researchers in the fields of Computer science and Information systems. Research about the OSG has been published in ScienceFoster, I. (2005). "Service-oriented science". Science. 308: 814–817. and Lecture Notes in Computer ScienceGannon, D. (2005). "Service oriented architectures for science gateways on grid systems". Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 3826: 21. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help).
Funding
The consortium is funded by the Department of Education and National Science Foundation, and has received a $30 million dollar joint grant. "Open Science Grid Receives 30 Million Dollar Award to Empower Scientific Collaboration and Computation". Open Science Grid. 2006-11-25. Retrieved 2009-03-02.