Peer-to-Peer Desktop Grids in the Real World: The ShareGrid Project

What is it about?

ShareGrid is a peer-to-peer desktop grid aimed at satisfying the computing needs of the small research laboratories located in the Piedmont area in Northern Italy. ShareGrid adopts a cooperative approach, in which each participant allows the other ones to use his/her own resources on a reciprocity basis. ShareGrid is based on the OurGrid middleware, that provides a set of mechanisms enabling participating entities to quickly, fairly, and securely share their resources.

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Why is it important?

In this paper we report our experience in designing, deploying, and using ShareGrid, and we describe the applications using it, as well as the lessons we learned, the problems that still remain open, and some possible solutions to them.