Data Grid: Storage Resource Broker Mike Smorul

SRB Overview Developed at San Diego Supercomputing Center. Provides the abstraction mechanisms needed to implement data grids, digital libraries, and persistent archives for data sharing, data publication, and data preservation.

SRB Concepts: Architecture

SRB Concepts: Components Oracle ClientSRB Server MCAT SRB Server MCAT RDBMS SRB Vault SRB Server Storage Space Storage Driver SRB Server Storage Space Storage Driver SRB Server Storage Space Storage Driver User

SRB Concepts: Access control Granular access permissions including:  Multiple primary owners of grid objects  Restrictions on collection and metadata browsing  Resource restrictions  Standard unix-like permissions Distributed access through domains within sites and across SRB zones

SRB Concepts: Federation A Federation enables SRB zones to recognize and interact with other zones it opens many possibilities in the types of interaction Federation Enables Fragmentation of MCAT Database An MCAT fragment coming down due to network or system failure does not bring the entire SRB down. The other sections continue to provide the server leaving only one section temporarily inaccessible. With federation, meta data can be made to reside closer to the resource by hosting a MCAT server closer to the resource. This enables reducing network latency, thus may enable an overall improvement in performance when an SRB network spans across large geographical distance. Federation enables local administrative control of resources enabling the notion of Virtual Organizations (VO) and also make it easy for a new VO to join the network It also enables easy replication and transfer of documents between VO

Implemented Standards/Protocols GSI based authentication  Globus tickets can be used to authenticate against the SRB MATRIX project provides a WSDL interface into the SRB Able to interface and abstract standard storage devices

Interfaces to the SRB Scommands  Unix file system like interface  Versions available for Unix, Dos and Mac inQ –  Windows Explorer style interface  Version available for Windows My SRB  Web Browser interface Client access API  C API  JARGON – Java API to SRB.  MATRIX – SRB Workflow management system

Metadata System level (checksums, guid, structural) Application level per object or collection  User-defined attributes (attribute/value pairs)  Extensible schema on mcat  Database Access Interface (SQL passthrough) Bulk operations on Metadata, upload

Maturity SDSC controlled SRB installations:  >4,900 users  17 Installations NARA, Teragrid, BIRN…  50.2 million files  305Tb total storage

Support Community and developer support  Srb-chat mail list  Bugzilla for bug/feature tracking  Limited developer access  Periodic workshops

Open/Proprietary Mostly open-source license  Free to academic and government research groups.  Commercial services need to contact UCSD Technology transfer office.

Setup Cost Simple setup of MCAT and first srb master  Autoinstall script to configure database, srb, and storage resource  UMD setup in under two hours. GUI based administration utility Multiple interfaces to allow for simple client access Large SRB installations may require database expertise for maintaining MCAT database

Future Plans OGSA compliant interface Expanded Federation capabilities depending on community needs See Bugzilla for more 

More Information SRB website 