Grid Computing Research at HKU

Grid computing becomes the blueprint for the new research computing infrastructures. In Grid computing, multiple independent computing clusters will be joined to form a grid. The Grid approach enables resource virtualization, on-demand provisioning, and service (resource) sharing between organizations. It defines a set of open standards and protocols, to gain access to applications and data, processing power, storage capacity and a vast array of other computing resources over the Internet.

During the last decade, HKU has been a pioneer in High Performance Computing (HPC) and Grid computing development for supporting and advancing research and innovations in Hong Kong. At 2002, the HKU SRG team joined the national 863 China National Grid project (CNGrid, phase I). This project is the only Grid project which is granted to an institute outside Mainland China and is the first 863 project granted to HKU Engineering Faculty. The HKU Gideon 300 cluster was installed with processing power of 0.356 Tera-FLOPS (ranked No. 175 on the TOP500 supercomputer list 11/2002) for joining as one of the CNGrid points.  At 2006, the HKU team joined the CNGrid Project Phase II. At 2008, HKU has installed the grid nodes for connecting international Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) Grid resources  and thus be connected to the Taiwan Grid. At 2009, HKU has formally joined as an institutional member of Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA) Grid.  At 2010, we completed the first phase implementation of HKU Grid Point system (Gideon-II cluster) with processing power of 19.43 Tera-FLOPS.  The second phase of Grid Point project is expected to be completed by early-2011. The total processing power of HKU Grid Point system, by combining two implementation phases, will be at least 27 Tera-FLOPS.

About HKU Grid Point System

The largest processing power Grid computing resource in Hong Kong region

• It is the largest processing power Grid Computing resource in Hong Kong region based on latest Intel Nehalem/Westmere CPU technology and NVIDIA Fermi GPU technology for high performance academic research.
• The first phase of the HKU Grid Point project is implemented in early 2010. A 1920 cores of 64-bit Linux Grid point system is installed to support System Research Group (SRG) of Department of Computer Science and Multiple Disciplines Research Project (MDRP) for HKU researchers on Grid computing, with a total processing power, in term of  theoretical peak performance value of 19.43 Tera-FLOPS (and measured Rmax of 14.218 Tera-FLOPS). This system consists of latest hardware such as Intel Nehalem Quadcore CPU, 10Gb Ethernet (10 Gb/s) switch and 4X DDR Infiniband (20 Gb/s) communication network.
• The second phase of Grid Point project is expected to be completed by early-2011.  It is planned that more computational power based on latest Intel Westmere 6-core Xeon CPUs, latest NVIDIA Fermi Graphics processing unit (GPU) and  fastest communication based on 4X QDR Infiniband (40 Gb/s) communication network will be implemented. It is expected that the theoretical peak performance value of the whole system will be augmented by at least 7.62 Tera-FLOPS after the second phase of implementation.
• Total processing power of HKU Grid Point system, by combining 2 implementation phases, will be at least 27.05 Tera-FLOPS in term of theoretical peak performance value.

Grid Middleware Developed by HKU Team

• G-JavaMPI  (phase I)

• G-PASS (phase I)

• InstantGrid (phase I)

• HKU CNGrid Project Phase II

• Shenzhen/HK Innovation Circle" project (深港创新圈的项目)

Recent Activities

Past Activities

Publications

• Sheng Di and Cho-Li Wang, Conflict-minimizing Dynamic Load Balancing for P2P Desktop Grid, to appear in The 11th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Grid Computing (Grid2010) Brussels, Belgium Oct 24 – Oct 29, 2010. (pdf)

• Sheng Di and Cho-Li Wang, "Dual-phase Just-in-time Workflow Scheduling in P2P Grid Systems", to appear in The 39th International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP2010), San Diego, California, USA, September 13-16, 2010.  (pdf)

• Ricky K.K. Ma, King Tin Lam, Cho-Li Wang, Chenggang Zhang, "A Stack-On-Demand Execution Model for Elastic Computing", to appear in The 39th International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP2010), San Diego, California, USA, September 13-16, 2010.  (pdf)

• Sheng Di, Cho-Li Wang, Dexter H. Hu, "Gossip-based Dynamic Load Balancing in an Autonomous Desktop Grid", The 10th International Conference on High-Performance Computing in Asia-Pacific Region, (HPC Asia 2009), March 2~5, 2009, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, pp. 85-92. (pdf)

• T.Q. Wang, C.L. Wang, and F.C.M. Lau, “An Architecture to Support Scalable Distributed Virtual Environment Systems on Grid”, to appear in Journal of Supercomputing. (pdf)

• Lin Chen, Tianchi Ma, Cho-Li Wang, Francis C.M. Lau, and Shanping Li, ``G-JavaMPI: A Grid Middleware for Transparent MPI Task Migration,'' to appear in Engineering the Grid: Status and Perspective, Nova Science Publisher. (pdf)

• Feilong Tang, Minglu Li, Joshua Zhexue Huang, Cho-Li Wang, and Zongwei Luo, Petri-Net-Based Coordination Algorithms for Grid Transactions, Second International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing and Applications (ISPA-2004), pp. 499-508, Hong Kong, China, 13 - 15 Dec. 2004

• Tianqi Wang, Cho-Li Wang, Francis Lau, A Grid-enabled Service Oriented Framework for Multi-server Distributed Virtual Environments, Second International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing and Applications (ISPA-2004), pp. 280-289, Hong Kong, China, 13 - 15 Dec. 2004. (pdf)

• Roy S.C. Ho, K.K. Yin, David C.M. Lee, Daniel H.F. Hung, C.L. Wang, and Francis C.M. Lau, ``InstantGrid: A Framework for On-Demand Grid Point Construction,''  The International Workshop on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2004), pp. 911-914, Oct 21-24, 2004, Wuhan, China. (pdf)

• Tianchi Ma, Lin Chen, Cho-Li Wang, and Francis C.M. Lau, ``G-PASS: Security Infrastructure for Grid Travelers, The International Workshop on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2004), pp. 301-308, Oct 21-24, 2004, Wuhan, China. (pdf)

• Zhihui Du, Francis C.M. Lau, Cho-Li Wang, Wai-kin Lam, Chuan He, Xiaoge Wang , Yu Chen and Sanli Li, ``Design of an OGSA Based MetaService Architecture,’’  The International Workshop on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC 2004), pp.167-174, Oct 21-24, 2004, Wuhan, China.

• F.C.M. Lau, R.S.C. Ho, and C.L. Wang, "Grid Computing in Hong Kong: Research and Development", (invited paper) Proc. of 10th IEEE International Workshop on Future Trends of Distributed Computing Systems (FTDCS 2004), Suzhou, China, May 2004, pp. 205-208. (paper)

• Roy S.C. Ho, David C.M. Lee, Daniel H.F. Hung, Cho-Li Wang, and Francis C.M. Lau, "On Managing Execution Environments for Utility Computing", Proceedings of Network Research Workshop 2004, 18th Asia-Pacific Advanced Network Meetings (APAN 2004), Cairns, Australia, July 6, 2004, 175-182. (pdf)

• Tianqi Wang, Cho-Li Wang, Francis Lau, ``Grid-enabled Multi-server Network Game Architecture,’’ the 3rd International Conference on Application and Development of Computer Games (ADCOG 2004), April 26-27 2004, City University of Hong Kong, HKSAR. (pdf) (slide)

• Lin Chen, Cho-Li Wang, Francis C.M. Lau, and Ricky K. K. Ma, ``A Grid Middleware for Distributed Java Computing with MPI Binding and Process Migration Supports,’’ International Workshop on Grid and Cooperative Computing (GCC-2002), December 26-28, 2002, Hainan, China, , pp. 640-652. (paper)(slide). An extended version of this paper has appeared in  Journal of Computer Science and Technology, Vol. 18, No. 4, July 2003, pp. 505-514.