Abstract
The GriddLeS environment discussed in this paper facilitates the composition
of arbitrary grid workflows from legacy software. The underlying belief is that
it is possible to take existing programs and grid enable them by providing a
high level tool that facilitates the composition of complex systems from smaller,
working components. These components are connected by a novel mechanism called
GridFiles, devices that behave either as local files, remote (and possibly replicated)
files or direct sockets. The paper discussed the type of grid application we
envisage followed by a discussion on how GriddLeS allows a user to build such
programs without source modification. We then describe our current implementation
of GridFiles, which is built on top of Globus, and illustrate its use in a distributed
mechanical engineering computation distributed across a small global grid