Grid Adaptive Development Software Project (GrADS)

The GrADS project is an NSF funded effort, which is seeking to simplify distributed heterogeneous computing. The Grid Application Development Software (GrADS) Project is developing tools and procedures that make it straightforward for scientists and engineers to construct applications for the Computational Grid, a national network of high performance computer systems. The project connects computer scientists at eight institutions in the USA.

Cactus and Distributed Heterogeneous Computing

The design of the Cactus architecture took into account the need to allow support for Grid computing, motivated by the large computing resource requirements of some of the application.

The standard release of Cactus can be used for distributed computing by simply compiling using the Globus MPICH-G/G2 of MPI (there is no special "Globus version" of Cactus).

Cactus can already be run in heterogeneous environments, either using Globus, or any other implementation of MPI which supports communications between different platforms (e.g MPICH using the p4 device, LAM, PACX, etc.). For example, simulations have been distributed across a mixture of SGI Origin 2000's and Cray T3Es, as well as heterogenous clusters (Linux/NT).

GrADS and Cactus

Cactus is being used as an real-world application testcase by the GrADS project. GrADS members are, constructing an enhanced version of the Cactus Worm to incorporate features such as contract specification and dynamic resource brokering.

GrADS Links

• The GrADS Project (ISI page)
• The GrADS Project (Rice page)
• Dave Angulo's Cactus in GrADS page