A scalable, extensible framework for grid management

The picture of global computing is rapidly changing. In the last few years, with the progress made in the area of computer networks, standalone desktop computers became largely interconnected. And then grid computing came along. Managing and monitoring a network had never been a trivial task and many efforts have been made in this direction. A variety of protocols have been proposed and standards have arisen in order to facilitate this process. Now the task has become even more complex. Not only do we have the need to monitor and manage the underlying network, but also the availability and utilisation of shared resources. From simple resources such as CPU cycles and storage space, all the way to complicated equipment used for specific purposes, such as medical or scientific instruments. Our vision is of a management framework for grid deployments, that is easy to use, scalable, secure and modular. We propose a framework that has been designed in order to satisfy the above criteria. Furthermore, it is based on open standards, which makes it easy to implement and integrate with existing management systems.