Nomadic migration: a new tool for dynamic grid computing

Abstract

We describe the design and implementation of a technology which provides an application with the ability to seek out and exploit remote computing resources by migrating tasks from site to site, dynamically adapting the application to a changing Grid environment. The motivation for this migration framework, dubbed "The Worm", originated from the experience of having an abundance of computing time for simulations, which is distributed over multiple sites and split in time chunks by queuing systems. We describe the architecture of the Worm, describing how new or more suitable resources are located, and how the payload simulation is migrated to these resources following a trigger event. The migration technology presented here is designed to be used for any application, including large-scale HPC simulations.