Grid'5000: A Large Scale And Highly Reconfigurable Experimental Grid Testbed

TLDR

Large‑scale grid systems are difficult to analyze theoretically, and most production grids lack the reconfiguration, control, and monitoring needed for research. The paper introduces Grid'5000, a 5,000‑CPU national testbed designed as a scientific instrument for grid computing research. Grid'5000’s design, architecture, control, and monitoring systems are described, emphasizing its reconfigurability and instrumentation. The authors demonstrate the reconfiguration subsystem with configuration examples and performance results.

Abstract

Large scale distributed systems such as Grids are difficult to study from theoretical models and simulators only. Most Grids deployed at large scale are production platforms that are inappropriate research tools because of their limited reconfiguration, control and monitoring capabilities. In this paper, we present Grid'5000, a 5000 CPU nation-wide infrastructure for research in Grid computing. Grid'5000 is designed to provide a scientific tool for computer scientists similar to the large-scale instruments used by physicists, astronomers, and biologists. We describe the motivations, design considerations, architecture, control, and monitoring infrastructure of this experimental platform. We present configuration examples and performance results for the reconfiguration subsystem.