Synthesizing Realistic Computational Grids

Realistic workloads are essential in evaluating middleware for computational grids. One important component is the raw grid itself: a network topology graph annotated with the hardware and software available on each node and link. This paper defines our requirements for grid generation and presents GridG, our extensible generator. We describe GridG in two steps: topology generation and annotation. For topology generation, we have both model and mechanism. We extend Tiers, an existing tool from the networking community, to produce graphs that obey recently discovered power laws of Internet topology. We also contribute to network topology theory by illustrating a contradiction between two laws and proposing a new version of one of them. For annotation, GridG captures intra- and inter-host correlations between attributes using conditional probability rules. We construct a set of rules, including one based on empirical evidence of OS concentration in subnets, that produce sensible host annotations.