Application modeling and representation for automatic grid-enabling of legacy applications

To best exploit the potential of the grid, it is necessary to "grid-enable" legacy applications that were not originally developed to run on a grid. In this paper, a generic framework to grid-enable legacy applications is presented. In particular, this paper focuses on a general approach to model and represent an application in a way that is supportive of the key properties of the grid-enabling framework: generality, automatic generation and integration of grid applications, plug-and-play deployment, and interoperability. Based on the model, a configuration language is developed to describe a wide range of command-line applications and their execution requirements. It is easy to use and does not require the application enabler to know the details of the grid middleware. A case study is presented to illustrate the automated grid-enabling of a legacy application in In-VIGO (in-virtual information grid organizations), a grid computing infrastructure that makes extensive use of visualization technology