ICE: Managing Multiple Clusters Using Web Services

High-performance computing architectures are mainly represented by clusters and grids. Usually, clusters are composed by a controled environment, using specific tools that work well to obtain performance. Grids present a set of machines that work as a unique image and treat issues like resource discovery and heterogeneity that are not common in clusters. Analyzing this context, we detect a situation between clusters and grids where users have an isolated access to different clusters. This scenario usually obligates users to learn details about how to interact with the tools of each cluster that they have access to. The management of this scenario is the aim of ICE - Integrated Cluster Environment. ICE is based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that hides the complexity to deal with multiple clusters. It offers a Web Portal to achieve access transparency and its framework provides extensibility, facilitating the management of cluster tools and its functionalities. This paper describes ICE, its testbed environment, results and related work.