Grid Computing Technology in Argentina: possibilities and advances in science and education

TURJANSKI P.; LEÓN CARRI M.C.; MOCSKOS E.; FERNÁNDEZ SLEZAK D.; MARSHALL G.; MONETTI J.; CATANIA C.; GARCÍA GARINO C.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Jornada; II Bienal Argentino-Checa E-Golems; 2007

Cancillería Argentina

Grid Computing is a rather recent technology that currently is object of intensive research efforts in USA, Europe, Japan, Australia and other countries. The development of Grid in South America is quite well established in Brazil, but is rather novel in Argentina.Grid Computing proposes the unlimited access to different computational resources like computer power, instruments, data storage and so on. In fact the name of Grid comes from a Power Grid analogy, in the sense that electricity is a pervasive resource to be accessed in transparent way.Different issues can be addressed so as to deal with this technology: infrastructure that means to consider computer networks and hardware resources, management of the grid in order to harvest and broker resources and to schedule jobs in a transparent way to the users, and, finally, the design of grid applications, and the gridification of legacy applications. In order to reach a mature usage of Grid in Argentina different issues have to be addressed: training of human resources, institutional agreements in order to provide access to idle computationalequipments and a proper communications network infrastructure. This work provides an overview of the Grid Computing state of the art in Argentina and points out different research projects in course in the country like the Supercomputing Center recently settled in School of Sciences of University of Buenos Aires and the Regional Grid initiative at Mendoza City.Different applications in areas like Artificial Intelligence and Computational Mechanics are shown. Finally the possibilities and impact of Grid Computing on Science and Education in Argentina are discussed.