News release

HP to Demonstrate UDC-Grid Connection at GlobusWorld

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced it would demonstrate research results that connect the HP Utility Data Center (UDC) to the Grid at GlobusWorld in San Diego, Jan. 13-17.

The demonstration is designed to show how Grid users could potentially use the HP UDC to run commercial applications simply and easily. Traditionally, the Grid -- the worldwide network that uses the Internet to build distributed computing infrastructures -- has been used mainly for technical and scientific applications.

HP Labs researchers built their work on the Globus Toolkit, an implementation of open standards being developed by the Global Grid Forum. Their innovations could extend the potential of the HP UDC, which is a self-adapting, self-healing and policy-driven system in which computing assets are wired once, then provisioned virtually and automatically as needed.

"Scientific applications can be scheduled in ‘batch' mode or are deadline-driven," said Sharad Singhal, principal scientist for the HP Labs project. "By contrast, commercial applications run continuously over long periods of time and have more stringent requirements on reliability, security and accountability."

To enable the Grid and the HP UDC to be connected, HP Labs researchers made three key innovations:

• Used the Globus Toolkit 2.0 to implement a gateway between the Grid and the UDC. The gateway advertises UDC resources to the Grid and accepts requests from Grid users for those resources.
• Identified a small number of tags that allow complex resource topologies to be created using RSL (Resource Specification Language), which is used by the Globus Toolkit. These tags are expected to enable RSL to be easily translated to and from the XML-based resource description used by the UDC.
• Created a tool that uses drag-and-drop techniques to enable users to design applications and submit them via the Globus Toolkit without needing to understand the details of RSL or how the UDC represents its resources.

"We use Globus Toolkit, the most widely used grid-computing infrastructure, as a starting platform," said Singhal. "We also leverage the capability offered by the HP UDC for secure resource partitioning and virtual wiring to create complex application environments. We believe this work extends the Grid, which currently provides no method for describing complex topologies, and enhances UDC by providing it with Grid interfaces."

A demonstration of the system has been installed at HP Labs in Palo Alto. The work is continuing as a research project.

The Globus Toolkit includes software developed by and/or derived from the Globus project (http://www.globus.org/).

About HP

HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. HP completed its merger transaction involving Compaq Computer Corporation on May 3, 2002. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.