Standards based heterogeneous metacomputing: the design of HARNESS II

Emerging trends in heterogeneous distributed metacomputing and in Web Services technologies exhibit several commonalities that each domain can exploit. In this paper, we present an architectural model and design issues in leveragingWeb Services to construct metacomputing frameworks. Our design is based on a combination of concepts currently embodied in the Harness system and those implemented by the Web Services Description Language and associated technologies. We begin by drawing parallels between component based metacomputing and the use of web services in the electronic commerce domain. We then suggest that the direct use of web service technologies is inappropriate and inefficient for high performance distributed computing, but that natural extensions are possible to enhance the suitability of these technologies. Based on our proposed extensions, specifically with regard to component deployment, localization, and encoding, we describe an operational model, architectural layering, and high-level design for the Harness II metacomputing framework.