The GridCC Project

Recent developments in Grid technologies have concentrated on providing batch access to distributed computational and storage resources. GRIDCC will extend this to include access to and control of distributed instrumentation.

Instruments work in real-time and their successful operation often requires rapid interaction with either conventional computing resources or other instruments. The control of instrumentation is often an interactive process. Both the real-time and interactive nature of instrument control mean that the extension of Grid technology into this area requires the definition of acceptable quality of service for the interactions between the different entities on the Grid.

GRIDCC will develop these definitions, where appropriate, building on work that is being carried out in the various standards organisations. Access to the instruments will be via an interface to a Virtual Instrument Grid Service (VIGS). VIGS are a new concept and their design and implementation will be a key part of the GRIDCC programme. GRIDCC will, wherever possible, build on the work of other Grid projects whilst at the same time seeking to influence the developments within these projects. In this way GRIDCC will access existing Grid resources.

The goals of the GRIDCC projects can be summarized as follows:

• Develop generic Grid middleware, based on existing building blocks (Grid Services) which will allow the remote control and monitoring of instrumentation such as distributed
• Incorporate the new middleware into a few significant applications that will allow the software to be validated both in terms of functionality and quality of service aspects: European Power Grid, Meteorology, Analysis of Neurophysiological data, Remote Operation of an Accelerator Facility, High Energy Physics Experiment.
• Disseminate widely the new software technology, the results of the evaluation on the testbeds and to encourage a wide range of enterprises to evaluate and adopt our Grid-oriented approach to real-time control and monitoring of remote instrumentation.

The gridcc project is also developing a groupware-like portal (called Virtual Control Room) which isbased on Gridsphere and extends it for real-time collaboration and instruments control. The Gridcc teamis also committed to contribute to Gridsphere codebase and has provided css layout rendering code as well asnew css stylesheets

For more information:
GridCC Project