Focused Practice

I. Answer the following questions:

1. Why has MA technology been proposed for N&SM?

2. Where do MAs attract increasing attention?

3. How is the scalability problem more adequately addressed?

4. What do even approaches where MAs are organized in hierarchical fashion lack?

5. What should these methods exploit?

6. Why does the deployment of a highly adaptive hierarchically structured management model seem a rational approach to address these issues?

7. What is the MDM?

II. Analyse the grammar structures underlined in the above text.

III. Speak on: MDM entities.

Unit 31 Grammar: The Impersonal Constructions. The Emphatic Constructions Word List:

1. the grid concept	сетевая концепция, подход
2. grid technologies	организация энергосетей
3. virtual organizations	фактические организации
4. to conflate	объединять
5. to complement	дополнять
6. to coin	изобретать, создавать (о слове)
7. distributed computing	распределенные вычисления
8. grid computing	сетевые вычисления, «решетки» вычислительных ресурсов
9. peer-to-peer computing	вычисления между равноправными узлами (в сети)
10. resource sharing	разделение (совместное использование) ресурсов
11. software development kit (SDK)	набор инструментальных средств по разработке программного обеспечения
12. application programming interfaces	интерфейсы прикладного программирования

“Grid”, the Technology of Distributed Calculation

“Grid” computing has emerged as an important new field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing by its focus on large-scale resource sharing, innovative applications, and, in some cases, high-performance orientation.

The “Grid problem” is defined as flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources – what we refer to as virtual organizations. In such settings, we encounter unique authentication, authorization, resource access, resource discovery, and other challenges. It is this class of problem that is addressed by Grid technologies.

In the extensible and open Grid architecture protocols, services, application programming interfaces, and software development kits are categorized according to their roles in enabling resource sharing. It is important to define a compact set of inter grid protocols to enable interoperability among different Grid systems. Grid concepts and technologies complement and have much to contribute to other contemporary technologies, including enterprise integration, application service provider, storage service provider, and peer-to-peer computing.

The term “the Grid” was coined in the mid1990s to denote a proposed distributed computing infrastructure for advanced science and engineering. Considerable progress has since been made on the construction of such an infrastructure, but the term “Grid” has also been conflated, at least in popular perception, to embrace everything from advanced networking to artificial intelligence. One might wonder whether the term has any real substance and meaning. Is there really a distinct “Grid problem” and hence a need for new “Grid technologies”? If so, what is the nature of these technologies, and what is their domain of applicability?

The real and specific problem that underlies the grid concept is coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multi-institutional virtual organizations. This sharing is not primarily file exchange but rather direct access to computers, software, data, and other resources, as is required by a range of collaborative problem-solving and resource-brokering strategies emerging in industry, science, and engineering.