Peer-to-Peer Desktop Grids Based on an Adaptive Decentralized Scheduling Mechanism

Introduction

Grid has recently emerged as a promising paradigm for high performance or high throughput computing because of the vast development of powerful computers and high-speed network technologies as well as low cost servers (GIMPS, 2009). Grid aims to aggregate heterogeneous, large-scale, and multiple-institutional resources, and to provide the transparent, secure, and coordinated access to various computing resources (supercomputer, cluster, scientific instruments, database, storage, etc.) owned by multiple institutions by making virtual organization. Grid computing is regarded to be the future of Semantic Web, the next step in distributed networking (SETI@home, 2009).

A peer-to-peer (or “P2P”) computer network exploits diverse connectivity between participants in a network and the cumulative bandwidth of network participants rather than conventional centralized resources where a relatively low number of servers provide the core value to a service or application. Peer-to-peer networks are typically used for connecting nodes via largely ad hoc connections. Many peer-to-peer networks are overlay networks because they run on top of the Internet. The overall goal of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) based systems is to provide (share) resources (like computing power, bandwidth or storage). A fundamental principle of the P2P paradigm is equality. P2P computing can be defined as the sharing of computer resources and services by direct exchange.