Notes on a Run-Time Construct for Grid

Process is a key concept of operating system, which has been used since its creation in 1960’s. As a runtime construct supported by CPU hardware and operating system, a process represents a subject to access and use various resources. In a grid-computing environment, a concept corresponding to process in a traditional operating system, which is called a grid process, must consider several new challenges: there are much more resources of different types; grid users expect a single system image supporting convenient sharing and collaboration, yet at the same time allowing autonomous control; a grid process should be decoupled from the underlying operating system of a particular machine; the grid process concept should support mobility and dynamics in time and space, as well as more sophisticated interactions among users and the grid. Proposed in this paper is such a runtime construct called grip, which executes on a grid operating system, representing a grid subject to access and use various grid resources.