ARC v0.8 Release Notes

September 30, 2009


Advanced Resource Connector (ARC) version 0.8 is the third stable release of this grid middleware. Two and half years after the previous stable release (0.6) we are proud to announce a number of features that significantly improve performance and usability. Moreover, this release contains the new technology preview for the ARC job management service, A-REX.

Moreover, release 0.8 sees a license change from GPL v2 to Apache v2.0, opening new perspectives for ARC exploitation in conjunction with other products.

Although ARC release 0.8 is based on essentially the same technology as 0.6 and is a direct upgrade from v0.6.5, upgrading requires certain changes, as described in the upgrade instructions.

Description

The Advanced Resource Connector as of version 0.8 is an open source software solution that enables production quality computational grids for high throughput computing, encompassing a wide range of size and purpose. The middleware integrates computing resources (typically, computing clusters managed by a batch system) and, to a lesser extent, storage services, making them available via a common secure grid layer. The middleware builds upon standard open source solutions such as OpenLDAP and OpenSSL, as well as some Globus Toolkit 4 pre-WS libraries. It relies on well-tested pre-OGSA grid technologies in creating unique ARC-specific services and tools. ARC developers strive to achieve simplicity, non-invasiveness, high performance, stability and reliability. With release 0.8 comes enhanced scalability and improved performance of computing and information services. ARC middleware is officialy supported on all major Linux flavors, and is known to operate smoothly on other Linux systems, with a variety of batch job management systems.

Features

ARC provides a reliable implementation of fundamental grid services optimized for high throughput computing, such as information services, resource discovery and monitoring, job submission and management, brokering, and basic data and resource management. Most of these services are provided through the security layer of GSI.

ARC implements several services and tools essential for a production quality middleware:

ARC main features are:

Changes since ARC v0.6.5

New components:

New functionalities and features:

Fixed bugs, other improvements:

System requirements

The middleware is tested on a variety of Linux systems. While it should work on other Unix-like systems, this release was not tested on non-Linux machines.

Availability

The middleware is free to be deployed anywhere by anybody. Pre-built binary releases for a dozen Linux platforms can be downloaded from NorduGrid download area or via NorduGrid package repositories.

The software is released under the Apache License v2.0.

The NorduGrid repository hosts the source code, and provides all the essential external software which are not part of a standard Linux distribution.

Installation notes

ARC packages fall into two main kinds: the server and the client parts. Server parts are typically installed on a computing resource by a system administrator, while the client can be set up anywhere and needs no system administrator privileges. Detailed installation instructions are distributed with the middleware documentation and are available at the Web site:

Known issues

Support

User support and site installation assistance is provided via the request tracking system available at . In addition, NorduGrid runs a couple of mailing lists, among which the nordugrid-discuss mailing list is a general forum for all kind of issues related to ARC middleware.

NorduGrid deploys the Bugzilla problem tracking system. Feature and enhancement requests, as well as problems, should be reported there.

Contact information is kept updated on the NorduGrid web site.

NorduGrid homepage