P2PGrid: Integrating P2P networks into the Grid environment

The current Grid architecture suffers from high complexity, inefficiency in leveraging common PC capabilities, and the single point of failure problem originated from Grid's client-server mode of interaction. In this paper, we propose an approach to solve the problems by incorporating peer-to-peer (P2P) networks with the Grid environment. A two-layer integration model is proposed, which consists of a Grid layer and an underlying P2P layer that can be accessed from but is not limited to the Grid layer. A prototype implementation of the model, called P2PGrid, has been developed and experimented with example applications built on the platform. The results show that the complexity for common PCs to participate in the Grid can be greatly reduced, the resource aggregation efficiency has been increased, and the single point of failure problem can be solved by using P2P mode of communication in the Grid environment.