A directory service for configuring high-performance distributed computations

High-performance execution in distributed computing environments often requires careful selection and configuration not only of computers, networks, and other resources but also of the protocols and algorithms used by applications. Selection and configuration in turn require access to accurate, up-to-date information on the structure and state of available resources. Unfortunately, no standard mechanism exists for organizing or accessing such information. Consequently, different tools and applications adopt ad hoc mechanisms, or they compromise their portability and performance by using default configurations. We propose a solution to this problem: a Metacomputing Directory Service that provides efficient and scalable access to diverse, dynamic, and distributed information about resource structure and state. We define an extensible data model to represent the information required for distributed computing, and we present a scalable, high-performance, distributed implementation. The dat...