Research Internships 2005-2006

Analysis and Integration of the ProActive and SALOME GRID platforms

ProActive is a GRID Java library (Source code under LGPL license) for parallel, distributed, and concurrent computing, also featuring mobility and security in a
uniform framework. With a reduced set of simple primitives, ProActive provides a comprehensive API to simplify the programming of Grid Computing applications:
distributed on Local Area Network (LAN), on clusters of workstations, or on Internet Grids.

ProActive features the following:

• Asynchronous calls: Typed Messages
• Automatic future-based synchronizations: wait-by-necessity
• Migration, Mobile Agents
• Group Communications with dynamic group management
• OO SPMD
• Component-based programming and composition using Fractal
• Transparent, dynamic code loading (up and down)
• XML Deployment Descriptors
• File transfer mechanism over the Grid.
• Security
• Crossing Firewalls with SSH Tunneling
• A Peer-To-Peer infrastructure
• Fault Tolerance and Checkpointing mechanism

Recently, ProActive applications have been deployed on 2111 processors during the second  GRID PLUGTESTS (http://www.etsi.org/plugtests/History/2005GRID.htm).

SALOME is a free software that provides a generic platform for Pre and Post-Processing for numerical simulation. It is based on an open and flexible architecture made of reusable components available as free software. It is open-source (LGPL), and you can download both the sourcecode and the executables from this site.

SALOME Platform:

• Supports interoperability between CAD modeling and computation software (CAD-CAE link)
• Makes easier the integration of new components on heterogeneous systems for numerical computation
• Sets the priority to multi-physics coupling between computation software
• Provides a generic user interface, user-friendly and efficient, which helps to reduce the costs and delays of carrying out the studies
• Reduces training time to the specific time for learning the software solution which has been based on this platform
• All functionalities are accessible through the programmatic integrated Python console.

After studying and analyzing the specificities of the two platforms, the following actions will be undertaken:
- Study the concepts followed by SALOME to supervise a numerical simulation.
- Create a prototype that reproduces the behaviour of the SALOME supervisor with ProActive technology.

This prototype will be a first step to understand future relations between ProActive and SALOME.

Depending on availability and demonstrated skills, an engineer position might be offered at the end of the internship.

Advisors:
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Jean-Yves Berthou (EDF R&D)
André Ribes (EDF R&D)
EDF Recherche et Développement
1, av. Général de Gaulle,
B.P. 408
92 141 Clamart Cedex

and

Denis Caromel (INRIA, CNRS-I3S, UNSA, IUF)
Téléphone : 04 92 38 76 31 Email : Denis.Caromel@inria.fr
Laboratoire ou équipe : INRIA Sophia Antipolis -- I3S -- CNRS

Location:
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INRIA,
2004 Rt. des Lucioles,  BP 93
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex

References:
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ProActive
http://ProActive.ObjectWeb.org

SALOME
http://mocad.cstb.fr/SALOME.htm
http://www.salome-platform.org/home/presentation/overview/

A Theory of Distributed Objects,
Denis Caromel, Ludovic Henrio, Monograph, Springer-Verlag, April 2005.
http://www-sop.inria.fr/oasis/Denis/TDO/index.html

F. Huet, D. Caromel, H. Bal, A High Performance Java Middleware with a Real
Application, SuperComputing Conference, November 2004, Pittsburgh (PA)

Francoise Baude and Denis Caromel and Matthieu Morel, From Distributed Objects
to Hierarchical Grid Components; International Symposium on Distributed Objects
and Applications (DOA), Catania, Sicily, Italy, 3-7 November 2003

Laurent Baduel, Francoise Baude, Denis Caromel, Object-Orient SPMD, CCGrid'05 -
Cardiff, Wales, UK, May 9-12, 2005.

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