GCIMCA: A Globus and SPRNG Implementation of a Grid-Computing Infrastructure for Monte Carlo Applications.
Yaohang Li, Michael Mascagni, Robert van Engelen · 2003
The implementation of large-scale Monte Carlo computation on the grid benefits from state-of-the-art approaches to accessing a computational grid and requires scalable parallel random number generators with good quality. The Globus software toolkit facilitates the creation and utilization of a computational grid for large distributed computational jobs. The Scalable Parallel Random Number Generators (SPRNG) library is designed to generate practically infinite number of random number streams with favorable statistical properties for parallel and distributed Monte Carlo applications. Taking advantage of the facilities of the Globus toolkit and the SPRNG library, we implemented a tool we refer to as the Grid-Computing Infrastructure for Monte Carlo Applications (GCIMCA). GCIMCA implements services specific to grid-based Monte Carlo applications, including the Monte Carlo subtask schedule service using the N-out-of-M strategy, the facilities of application-level checkpointing, the partial result validation service, and the intermediate value validation service. Based on these facilities, GCIMCA intends to provide a trustworthy grid-computing infrastructure for large-scale and high-performance distributed Monte Carlo computations. 1.