Building An Information System for a Distributed Testbed

This paper describes an information system designed to support the large volume of monitoring information generated by a distributed testbed. This monitoring information is produced by several subsystems and consists of status and performance data that needs to be federated, distributed, and stored in a timely and easy to use manner. Our approach differs from existing approaches because it federates and distributes information at a low architectural level via messaging; a natural match to many of the producers and consumers of information. In addition, a database is easily layered atop the messaging layer for consumers that want to query and search the information. Finally, a common language to represent information in all layers of the information system makes it significantly easier for users to consume information. Performance data shows that this approach meets the significant needs of FutureGrid and would meet the needs of an experimental infrastructure twice the size of FutureGrid. In addition, this design also meets the needs of existing distributed scientific infrastructures.