Joerg Schneider
Barry Linnert
Julius Gehr

As the Virtual Resource Manager (VRM) is a novel Grid management system it is designed to overcome limitations of todays Grid environments. While the main features of the VRM are runtime responsibility, resource virtualization, information hiding, autonomy provision and smooth integration of existing resource management systems, the design of the VRM has its focus on providing flexibility, transparency and reliability. To meet these goals the VRM integrates Service Level Agreements (SLA) as the main instrument.

The VRM is a domain based Grid resource management system and integrates different local resource management systems (RMS) using Active Interface (AI) technologies. Responsible for building up several management domains is the Administrative Domain Controller (ADC) as the central management component of the VRM architecture.

The VRM architecture introduces resource virtualization in an enhanced way by combining different distributed resources of the same resource type to provide these sites as a single resource, covering all challenges, e.g. failures of local resources and communication behaviour between the different sites. Additionally the VRM manages arbitrary types of resources, e.g., cluster systems, parallel computers, but also networks, disk space or other special equipment and their combinations. It also covers the areas of software resources, information resources, or even human resources.

To provide the level of reliability which is needed for future Grid applications and confirmed by SLA the VRM makes heavily use of advance reservation of all of the resources, but it is not limited to local RMS providing advance reservation support.

For all of our research interest in future Grid applications, advance reservation, service and information providing, co-allocation and workflow management, the VRM provides the feasible environment.

The VRM is an ongoing project in cooperation with the Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing. Together with Prof. César De Rose (PUCRS Porto Alegre, Brazil) we operate an international Grid test bed based on the VRM. Furthermore it is also the proposed platform for the Berlin-Brandenburg-Grid (BBGrid).

The Virtual Resource Manager: An Architecture for SLA-aware Resource Management

For more details, take a look at the list of VRM related publications.

Please contact one of the authors to obtain a copy of the VRM.