JM: A Jini Framework for Global Computing

The number of Internet users and internet-connected computers are estimated to be in the order of hundred millions. Users are restricted to performmainly information retrieval (document search) and e-commerce related (shopping, online banking) tasks, while the majority of the computing resources are under-utilised. With suitable technology, it is possible to create a service-centred Internet, where users can perform more sophisticated (e.g. computing) tasks. We argue that grid research should explore the issues of creating very large systems of services available to many users, as opposed to HPC programs available to relatively few scientific users. This paper describes the architecture of a Jini based global computing environment, whose aim is to support the execution of sequential and parallel programs on a large scale. We describe the architecture, supported programming models of the system, as well as our current, ongoing work and future development plans.