MICE: An Efficient Grid Scheme for Mathematical Computing Yi Yang1,2, Li Liu1,2, Lian Li 1, Zhenfang Li 1, Rui Zhou 1,2 1 Computer Science Department, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, P. R. China [email protected] 2 School Of Mathematics and Statistics Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, P. R. China [email protected] applications, which combine large dataset, geographic Abstract distribution of users and resources, bring about urgent demands for high performance, more stability and large-capacity storage and processing capability that We designed a Grid Computing model in math can't be satisfied by any single mathematical software, based on current network computing technologies. any single computer, and any existing mathematical MICE is an emerging technology to provide uniform computing infrastructure or technology. The effective programming, task submission, and management mathematical software integration, distributed specifications across the large scale distributed resources organization and management with high computing nodes which deployed some famous performance have become the main problem that many mathematical software. MICE utilizes a three-level applications faced. The Grid Computing[1][2] architecture that shields users from low-level technologies are emerging efforts to solve this problem. computing resource discovery and provides globe Grid Computing can constitute a single virtual uniform view for users. We extended MathML to solve environment for task submission, management and the mathematical semantic objects' expression. CSP processing by integrating all kind of resources (Computing Service Platform) servers are adopted in distributed on the network. It can shield the MICE to provide uniform task access, transfer and heterogeneity of underlying physical resource and management of heterogeneous distributed resources build an infrastructure to provide uniform access, across multiple administrative domains. This storage, transfer, management and service capability architecture enables the mathematical software for large scale distributed resources. resources to be deployed as services on the internet. MICE (Mathematics Internet Computing MICE can achieve good scalability, reliability and can Environment) System is a Grid Computing middleware be flexibly deployed and configured. which is designed and implemented by us. MICE can integrate many kinds of mathematical software and provide uniform seamless access to distributed 1. Introduction computing nodes. It provides a uniform programming language to communicate with various mathematical In recent years, the kind of mathematical software deployed on distributed computing nodes, and software[13] for scientific computing in modern a submission mechanism to improve computing large-scale scientific researchers, classical algorithms performance. The ordinary task can be distributed to and powerful computing resources is growing several ordinary nodes which deployed some common explosively, such as Maple[15], Mathematica[16], software or programs, such as MatLab, SciLab, etc. Matlab[17], etc. There are many problems with it, the Meanwhile, the special task can be distributed to users who want to analyze and complete their tasks are special nodes which deployed unusual resources, often need more than one of the mathematical software, including both the software and the hardware. but every software has its own characteristic, and Distributed multi-domain federated servers and unluckily they are difficult to communicate with each high-available technology are also adopted in MICE other; meanwhile, the software are often setup system. geographically distributed and the users' tasks The rest of the paper is organized as below. Section performed on those software often go with large 2 introduces the related work. Section 3 presents the dataset and computationally expensive. Such Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Services Computing (APSCC'06) 0-7695-2751-5/06 $20.00 © 2006 Authorized licensed use limited to: LanZhou University Trial User. Downloaded on September 26, 2009 at 05:02 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. architecture of the MICE system. Section 4 discusses (i.e. Computer Algebra Systems). But JavaMath can be the design and implementation of MICE. Section 5 used for stand-alone applications. gives the summary and the future work. Unlike the IAMC, who much more likes C/S mode which can't provide powerful computational capability. 2. Related Work The goal of MICE is some similar to MONET and RISC. They all have achieved distributed web service Computing Grid in mathematics is a hot topic that accessing, uniform user interface, single sign-on, etc. develops rapidly these days. MONET[3], demonstrate But MICE is much different from them in several the applicability of creating a semantic web to the aspects. Firstly, MICE utilizes an extended MathML world of mathematical software, using sophisticated that describes mathematical problems which could algorithms to match the characteristics of a problem to implement the control of problems' execution. the advertised capabilities of available services and Secondly, all computational node in MICE is deployed then invoking the chosen services through a standard with a famous mathematical software, such as Matlab, mechanism. to achieve high performance. Thirdly, MICE adopts RISC[4], a Framework for Brokering Distributed the multi-domain federated server technology and Mathematical Services. In this project the broker requests optimizing technology to achieve better determines the suitable services and returns them to the scalability and availability. Fourthly, role-based client for invocation. The project is based on Web multi-level access control policy is used to implement Service, and puts forward Mathematical Services the access control of the system. Description Language. RIACA[5], has developed a sort of tools, through 3. Architecture Overview TCP/IP socket port that has been built in Server-side, user can remotely access the mathematical MICE is designed for mathematical web computing. computation on Internet. The protocol in It supports uniform secure access and management of communication is OpenMath[8]. various types of heterogeneous distributed The Internet Accessible Mathematical Computation mathematical software and hardware resources. MICE project IAMC[6][12][13] defines (after the model of can integrate many kind of wide heterogeneous the HyperText Transfer Protocol HTTP) the mathematical software resources, such as Matlab, application layer protocol MCP[14] by which a Maple, and Mathematical web services (e.g. special computational server and a client can communicate algorithm, users' own program) etc. It can organize with each other. A server can be referenced by a client them uniformly and shields the heterogeneity and via a URL; the subsequent client-server dialogue different administrative domains of underlying comprises computation and control requests from the resources. Also it provides visual global views and client, corresponding responses from the server, and convenient, standard access and management APIs and also server requests to the client that solicit information interfaces for users and applications. from the end user. The protocol allows the server to MICE adopts a three-layer architecture, as illustrated offer different data formats and also to send informal in Figure.1. The first layer, Language Layer, is mainly service descriptions. OpenMath[8][11] and MathML[8] for representation of mathematical job. It provides a are emerging standard for representing mathematical GUI, called MBuilder, for users inputing their objects with their semantics. There is close relationship programs. It supplies a uniform programming language between the MathML recommendation and the called Mlanguage for describing users computing job Worldwide Web Consortium, for a large overlap flow, translates the flow to MathML, and then sends it between the two developer communities. MathML to an appropriate second layer's server through MGP deals principally with the presentation of mathematical (Mathematical Grid Protocol). In the end, MBuilder objects, while OpenMath is solely concerned with their receives and displays the result in a suitable format. semantic meaning or content. Though MathML does have some limited facilities for dealing with content, it allows semantic information encoded in OpenMath to be embedded inside a MathML structure. Thus the two technologies may be seen as highly complementary. JavaMath[9] is a free software, which enables mathematical programs written in Java to use the computational capabilities of existing compute engines Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Services Computing (APSCC'06) 0-7695-2751-5/06 $20.00 © 2006 Authorized licensed use limited to: LanZhou University Trial User. Downloaded on September 26, 2009 at 05:02 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. computational software and web service are on this layer, they can provide the computational capability to users. The MICE architecture presents the major logical functions which the MICE provides. The detail design and implementation will be shown in the next section. 4. Design and Implementation The main components of the MICE include client tools (MBuilder), CSP servers and USC, as illustrated in Figure.2. The MICE is implemented in Java. The MBuilder communicates with CSP using MGP (Mathematical Grid Protocol), which is also used to Figure 1. MICE Grid Architecture. transmit messages