TY - CONF T1 - Ad hoc Cloud Computing T2 - IEEE Cloud Y1 - 2015 A1 - Gary McGilvary A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - Malcolm Atkinson KW - ad hoc KW - cloud computing KW - reliability KW - virtualization KW - volunteer computing AB - This paper presents the first complete, integrated and end-to-end solution for ad hoc cloud computing environments. Ad hoc clouds harvest resources from existing sporadically available, non-exclusive (i.e. primarily used for some other purpose) and unreliable infrastructures. In this paper we discuss the problems ad hoc cloud computing solves and outline our architecture which is based on BOINC. JF - IEEE Cloud UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.08097 ER - TY - CONF T1 - C2MS: Dynamic Monitoring and Management of Cloud Infrastructures T2 - IEEE CloudCom Y1 - 2013 A1 - Gary McGilvary A1 - Josep Rius A1 - Íñigo Goiri A1 - Francesc Solsona A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - Atkinson, Malcolm P. AB - Server clustering is a common design principle employed by many organisations who require high availability, scalability and easier management of their infrastructure. Servers are typically clustered according to the service they provide whether it be the application(s) installed, the role of the server or server accessibility for example. In order to optimize performance, manage load and maintain availability, servers may migrate from one cluster group to another making it difficult for server monitoring tools to continuously monitor these dynamically changing groups. Server monitoring tools are usually statically configured and with any change of group membership requires manual reconfiguration; an unreasonable task to undertake on large-scale cloud infrastructures. In this paper we present the Cloudlet Control and Management System (C2MS); a system for monitoring and controlling dynamic groups of physical or virtual servers within cloud infrastructures. The C2MS extends Ganglia - an open source scalable system performance monitoring tool - by allowing system administrators to define, monitor and modify server groups without the need for server reconfiguration. In turn administrators can easily monitor group and individual server metrics on large-scale dynamic cloud infrastructures where roles of servers may change frequently. Furthermore, we complement group monitoring with a control element allowing administrator-specified actions to be performed over servers within service groups as well as introduce further customized monitoring metrics. This paper outlines the design, implementation and evaluation of the C2MS. JF - IEEE CloudCom CY - Bristol, UK ER - TY - CONF T1 - V-BOINC: The Virtualization of BOINC T2 - In Proceedings of the 13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGrid 2013). Y1 - 2013 A1 - Gary McGilvary A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - Ashley Lloyd A1 - Malcolm Atkinson AB - The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is an open source client-server middleware system created to allow projects with large computational requirements, usually set in the scientific domain, to utilize a technically unlimited number of volunteer machines distributed over large physical distances. However various problems exist deploying applications over these heterogeneous machines using BOINC: applications must be ported to each machine architecture type, the project server must be trusted to supply authentic applications, applications that do not regularly checkpoint may lose execution progress upon volunteer machine termination and applications that have dependencies may find it difficult to run under BOINC. To solve such problems we introduce virtual BOINC, or V-BOINC, where virtual machines are used to run computations on volunteer machines. Application developers can then compile their applications on a single architecture, checkpointing issues are solved through virtualization API's and many security concerns are addressed via the virtual machine's sandbox environment. In this paper we focus on outlining a unique approach on how virtualization can be introduced into BOINC and demonstrate that V-BOINC offers acceptable computational performance when compared to regular BOINC. Finally we show that applications with dependencies can easily run under V-BOINC in turn increasing the computational potential volunteer computing offers to the general public and project developers. V-BOINC can be downloaded at http://garymcgilvary.co.uk/vboinc.html JF - In Proceedings of the 13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGrid 2013). CY - Delft, The Netherlands ER - TY - CONF T1 - Optimum Platform Selection and Configuration for Computational Jobs T2 - All Hands Meeting 2011 Y1 - 2011 A1 - Gary McGilvary A1 - Malcolm Atkinson A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - Ashley Lloyd AB - The performance and cost of many scientific applications which execute on a variety of High Performance Computing (HPC), local cluster environments and cloud services could be enhanced, and costs reduced if the platform was carefully selected on a per-application basis and the application itself was optimally configured for a given platform. With a wide-variety of computing platforms on offer, each possessing different properties, all too frequently platform decisions are made on an ad-hoc basis with limited ‘black-box’ information. The limitless number of possible application configurations also make it difficult for an individual who wants to achieve cost-effective results with the maximum performance available. Such individuals may include biomedical researchers analysing microarray data, software developers running aviation simulations or bankers performing risk assessments. However in either case, it is likely that many may not have the required knowledge to select the optimum platform and setup for their application; to do so, would require extensive knowledge of their applications and various platforms. In this paper we describe a framework that aims to resolve such issues by (i) reducing the detail required in the decision making process by placing this information within a selection framework, thereby (ii) maximising an application’s performance gain and/or reducing costs. We present a set of preliminary results where we compare the performance of running the Simple Parallel R INTerface (SPRINT) over a variety of platforms. SPRINT is a framework providing parallel functions of the statistical package R, allowing post genomic data to be easily analysed on HPC resources [1]. We run SPRINT on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to compare the performance with the results obtained from HECToR, the UK’s National Supercomputing Service, and the Edinburgh Compute and Data Facilities (ECDF) cluster. JF - All Hands Meeting 2011 CY - York ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Circulate Architecture: Avoiding Workflow Bottlenecks Caused By Centralised Orchestration JF - Cluster Computing Y1 - 2009 A1 - Barker, A. A1 - Weissman, J. A1 - van Hemert, J. I. KW - grid computing KW - workflow VL - 12 UR - http://www.springerlink.com/content/080q5857711w2054/?p=824749739c6a432ea95a0c3b59f4025f&pi=1 ER - TY - RPRT T1 - An e-Infrastructure for Collaborative Research in Human Embryo Development Y1 - 2009 A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - van Hemert, Jano I. A1 - Baldock, Richard A. A1 - Atkinson, Malcolm P. AB - Within the context of the EU Design Study Developmental Gene Expression Map, we identify a set of challenges when facilitating collaborative research on early human embryo development. These challenges bring forth requirements, for which we have identified solutions and technology. We summarise our solutions and demonstrate how they integrate to form an e-infrastructure to support collaborative research in this area of developmental biology. UR - http://arxiv.org/pdf/0901.2310v1 ER - TY - CONF T1 - An E-infrastructure to Support Collaborative Embryo Research T2 - Cluster Computing and the Grid Y1 - 2009 A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - van Hemert, Jano I. A1 - Baldock, Richard A. A1 - Atkinson, Malcolm P. JF - Cluster Computing and the Grid PB - IEEE Computer Society SN - 978-0-7695-3622-4 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Eliminating the Middle Man: Peer-to-Peer Dataflow T2 - HPDC '08: Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing Y1 - 2008 A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - Weissman, Jon B. A1 - van Hemert, Jano KW - grid computing KW - workflow JF - HPDC '08: Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing PB - ACM ER - TY - CONF T1 - Orchestrating Data-Centric Workflows T2 - The 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid) Y1 - 2008 A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - Weissman, Jon B. A1 - van Hemert, Jano KW - grid computing KW - workflow JF - The 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid) PB - IEEE Computer Society ER - TY - CONF T1 - Scientific Workflow: A Survey and Research Directions T2 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science Y1 - 2008 A1 - Barker, Adam A1 - van Hemert, Jano KW - e-Science KW - workflow AB - Workflow technologies are emerging as the dominant approach to coordinate groups of distributed services. However with a space filled with competing specifications, standards and frameworks from multiple domains, choosing the right tool for the job is not always a straightforward task. Researchers are often unaware of the range of technology that already exists and focus on implementing yet another proprietary workflow system. As an antidote to this common problem, this paper presents a concise survey of existing workflow technology from the business and scientific domain and makes a number of key suggestions towards the future development of scientific workflow systems. JF - Lecture Notes in Computer Science PB - Springer VL - 4967 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68111-3_78 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Interaction as a Grounding for Peer to Peer Knowledge Sharing T2 - Advances in Web Semantics Y1 - 2007 A1 - Robertson, D. A1 - Walton, C. A1 - Barker, A. A1 - Besana, P. A1 - Chen-Burger, Y. A1 - Hassan, F. A1 - Lambert, D. A1 - Li, G. A1 - McGinnis, J A1 - Osman, N. A1 - Bundy, A. A1 - McNeill, F. A1 - van Harmelen, F. A1 - Sierra, C. A1 - Giunchiglia, F. JF - Advances in Web Semantics PB - LNCS-IFIP VL - 1 ER -