WS Information Services: Key Concepts

>Overview
Uses and Benefits of the Index Service
Information Model
Queries
User Interface
Security
Related Documents

Overview

This section continues our overview of the Globus Toolkit and grid computing.

Each Grid service instance has a particular set of service data associated with it.  The essence of the Index Service is to provide an interface for operations generating, aggregating and querying this service data.

The Index Service uses an extensible framework for managing static and dynamic data for Grids built using GT3.  Note that the Index Service does not beget specific data types.  The types of data available from the Index Service for queries and other operations instead depend on how the service is configured; that is, what sorts of Service Data Providers it uses to aggregate data and what sorts of other services it indexes.

"Information service, implemented as the Index Service, is one of the GT3.2 Base Services. It collects, aggregates, and queries Service Data; monitors data feeds; and creates Service Data dynamically on demand. It can be used to index Service Data carrying state information from multiple grid service instances for use in resource discovery, selection and optimization." - IBM

What the Index Service Is

The Index Service is an information service that uses an extensible framework for managing static and dynamic data for Grids built using the Globus Toolkit 3.2. This framework provides the following functionality:

• Creates and manages dynamic Service Data via Service Data Provider programs
• Aggregates Service Data from multiple Grid service instances
• Registers Grid service instances using the ServiceGroup port type

What the Index Service Is Not

The Index Service is not a message-queuing service.