I am currently researching as a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at SUNY Binghamton with my advisor Michael Lewis, specializing in grid computing. My current research direction involves researching grid resource availability prediction as well as scheduling in a heterogeneous grid environment. More specifically, I'm examining how prediction of the availabilities of resources that comprise the grid can be utilized to increase the performance of the grid in executing applications. The key novelty in my contribution is in studying the different causes of unavailability that grid resources experience and in attempting to predict those unavailability types. The initial work highlighted below concerns analyzing traces gathered from actual grid resources for their availability data as well as making an initial assessment on the predictability of those availability states and the scheduling benefit that is possible based on this. My current work includes developing more accurate and sophisticated algorithms for predicting resource availability in addition to studying how to utilize those predictions to make more effective scheduling decisions.
Grid computing and it's cousin, volunteer computing have many direct positive consequences for the community at large. One of the key benefits is in providing scientists and researchers in virtually any field with access to a large amount computing power for relatively cheap or at no cost at all. This computing power can be utilized to help solve large problems as evidenced in several current projects. These projects aim at utilizing computational power that otherwise would have been wasted. Instead it is put to use for the benefit of mankind. The problems solved in this way may not have been feasible without access to such a large amount of computational power and as such, these grids can be an invaluable tool. Research that enables grids to become more efficient, easier to setup or in the most practical terms, more easily utilized by the end users allows the technology to be more powerful and accessible thus enabling widespread use and benefit to the scientific community and by extension, the community at large.
Examples of such projects include: