Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

12-2004

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M. Eng.

Department

Computer Engineering and Computer Science

Committee Chair

Ragade, Rammohan K., 1942-

Subject

Computational grids (Computer systems)

Abstract

Grid computing is evolving as a service based, flexible and secure resource sharing environment. Currently, with the help of Grid middleware toolkits, Grids are exposing their services through programming models and command line interfaces, requiring much technical knowledge of the backend Grid systems. Grid portals also exist, but fall short on integrating with native environments and maintaining a uniform user interface from portal to portal. In order to gain wider acceptance within the large and less technical oriented user communities, we need a homogeneous graphical user environment that supports the challenging task of providing Grid users an easy to use, seamless and transparent interface requiring minimal user participation. Motivated by the needs of these users, we are presenting the Grid Desktop based on the popularity of the graphical desktop paradigms such as KDE and Windows XP. The Java CoG Kit Grid Desktop is a user centric workspace that enhances the normal operating system desktop paradigm by interlacing Grid concepts and leveraging commodity technologies like Java. The Grid Desktop contributes to the Java CoG Kit architecture and delivers ubiquitous computing through the Java CoG Kit abstractions, portability through XML and Java Web start technologies, and a simple user interface by following the vastly popular desktop patterns such as drag-n-drop.

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