Abstract
A decade and a half ago, the Parallel Virtual Machine abstraction strived to virtualize a collection of heterogeneous components into a generalized concurrent computing resource. PVM presented a unified programming, model backed by runtime subsystems and scripts that homogenized machine dependencies. This paradigm has had mixed success when translated to computing environments that span multiple administrative and ownership domains. We argue that multidomain resource sharing is critically dependent upon decoupling provider concerns from client requirements, and suggest alternative methodologies for virtualizing heterogeneous resource aggregates. We present the H2O framework, a core subsystem in the Harness project, and discuss its alternative approach to metacomputing. H2O is based on a “pluggable” software architecture to enable flexible and reconfigurable distributed computing. A key feature is the provisioning of customization capabilities that permit clients to tailor provider resources as appropriate to the given application, without compromising control or security. Through the use of uploadable “pluglets”, users can exploit specialized features of the underlying resource, application libraries, or optimized message passing subsystems on demand. The current status of the H2O system, recent experiences, and planned enhancements are described, in the context of evolutionary directions in virtualizing distributed resources.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sunderam, V. (2005). Virtualization in Parallel Distributed Computing. In: Di Martino, B., Kranzlmüller, D., Dongarra, J. (eds) Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface. EuroPVM/MPI 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3666. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11557265_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11557265_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-29009-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31943-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)