Section: Software

XtremWeb

Participants : Gilles Fedak [correspondent] , Haiwu He, Bing Tang, Simon Delamare.

XtremWeb is an open source software for Desktop Grid computing, jointly developed by INRIA and IN2P3.

XtremWeb allows to build lightweight Desktop Grid by gathering the unused resources of Desktop Computers (CPU, storage, network). Its primary features permit multi-users, multi-applications and cross-domains deployments. XtremWeb turns a set of volatile resources spread over LAN or Internet into a runtime environment executing high througput applications.

XtremWeb is a highly programmable and customizable middleware which supports a wide range of applications (bag-of tasks, master/worker), computing requirements (data/CPU/network-intensive) and computing infrastructures (clusters, Desktop PCs, multi-Lan) in a manageable, scalable and secure fasion. Known users include LIFL, LIP, LIG, LRI (CS), LAL (physics Orsay), IBBMC (biology), Université Paris-XIII, Université de Guadeloupe, IFP (petroleum), EADS, CEA, University of Wisconsin Madison, University of Tsukuba (Japan), AIST (Australia), UCSD (USA), Université de Tunis, AlmerGrid (NL), Fundecyt (Spain), Hobai (China), HUST (China).

There are two branches of XtremWeb : XtremWeb -HEP is a production version developed by IN2P3. It features many security improvements such as X509 support which allows its usage within the EGEE context. XtremWeb -CH is a research version developed by HES-SO, Geneva, which aims at building an effective Peer-To-Peer system for CPU time consuming applications.

XtremWeb has been supported by national grants (ACI CGP2P) and by major European grants around Grid and Desktop Grid such as FP6 CoreGrid: European Network of Excellence, FP6 Grid4all, and more recently FP7 EDGeS : Enabling Desktop Grid for E-Science and FP7 EDGI: European Desktop Grid Initiative.

On going developments include : providing Quality-of-Service for Desktop Grids (SpeQuloS), inclusion of the BitDew middleware to distribute data as well as inclusion of virtualization tenchnologies.