Computing Seminar

Distributed Application Analysis and Debugging using NetLogger2

Brian L. Tierney, LBNL

Grid Programming in Python using pyGlobus

Keith R. Jackson, LBNL

Abstract

Netlogger (short for Networked Application Logger) is a methodology for performing detailed end-to-end analysis of distributed applications. It includes tools for instrumenting applications, host systems, and networks, and has a powerful visualization tool for correlating monitoring data from all components. NetLogger has proven to be extremely useful for debugging and tuning distributed applications. We have recently released NetLogger2, which has a number of important enhancements, including a new efficient binary event format, an automatic recovery mechanism, and a web-service-based activation mechanism. This talk will present a brief overview of NetLogger, and then concentrate on new NetLogger2 features. The talk will also cover how we are using NetLogger2 as the data transport for our implementation of the Grid Monitoring Architecture (GMA).

pyGlobus provides a high-level object-oriented interface to the Globus Toolkit(tm) and allows the rapid development of Grid applications. It provides an interface to all of the major components of the Globus Toolkit, including secure IO, resource acquisition and control, data transfers, etc. pyGlobus has been used to implement a number of Grid applications, and has proven very useful for decreasing both time to delivery and cost of application development. This talk will provide an overview of the current pyGlobus functionality, including our recent work on secure web services. It will also include an overview of our current plans for a Python based Open Grid Services Infrastructure (OGSI) implementation.

About the speakers:

Brian L. Tierney is a Staff Scientist and group leader of the Data Intensive Distributed Computing Group, which is part of the Distributed Systems Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research interests include data intensive distributed computing, distributed system performance monitoring and analysis. He recently returned to LBNL after spending one year CERN as a scientific associate. Mr. Tierney has an M.S. in Computer Science from San Francisco State University, and a B.A. in physics from the University of Iowa.

Keith Jackson is currently a Computer Systems Engineer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has been involved in developing a PKI based authorization system, and a secure advanced reservation system. He is currently involved in developing component-based interfaces to "Grid" services, and prototyping large-scale "Grids". His interests include distributed systems, access control, distributed system security, advanced reservations, network quality of service, component based middleware, and PKI based applications. Prior to joining LBNL, he worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Mr. Jackson has a B.S. from the Evergreen State College.