Benchmarking of high throughput computing applications on Grids

Grids constitute a promising platform to execute loosely coupled, high-throughput parameter sweep applications, which arise naturally in many scientific and engineering fields like bio-informatics, computational fluid dynamics, particle physics, etc. In spite of the simple computational structure of these applications, its efficient execution and scheduling are challenging because of the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of Grids. In this work, we propose a benchmarking methodology to analyze the performance of computational Grids in the execution of high throughput computing applications, that combines: (i) a representative benchmark included in the NAS Grid Benchmark suite; (ii) a performance model that provides a way to parametrize and compare different Grids; and (iii) a set of application-level performance metrics to analyze and predict the performance of this kind of applications. The benchmarking methodology will be applied to the performance analysis of a Globus-based research testbed that spans heterogeneous resources in five institutions.