RSD - Resource and Service Description

RSD (Resource and Service Description) is a scheme for specifying resources and services in complex heterogeneous computing systems and metacomputing environments. At the system administrator level, RSD is used to specify the available system components, such as the number of nodes, their interconnection topology, CPU speeds, and available software packages. At the user level, a GUI provides a comfortable, high-level interface for specifying system requests. A textual editor can be used for defining repetitive and recursive structures. This gives service providers the necessary flexibility for fine-grained specification of system topologies, interconnection networks, system and software dependent properties. All these representations are mapped onto a single, coherent internal object-oriented resource representation. Dynamic aspects (like network performance, availability of compute nodes, and compute node loads) are traced at runtime and included in the resource description to allow for optimal process mapping and dynamic task load balancing at runtime at the metacomputer level. This is done in a self-organizing way, with human system operators becoming only involved when new hardware/software components are installed.