New Version Provides Native Packages, Simplifies Globus Online Data Movement Across Multiple Domains
Newswise — Chicago, IL -- Dec. 20, 2011 – The Globus team today announced the availability of Globus Toolkit 5.2, the culmination of more than a year of development effort to greatly enhance the ability to install, setup and update the Globus Toolkit client and service components.
The key feature of Globus Toolkit 5.2 (GT 5.2) is the introduction of binary native packages for Globus Toolkit on the following platforms: Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Scientific Linux, and CentOS.
“This is a very important and anticipated release for our users,” said Stuart Martin, engineering lead for Globus Toolkit. “Now most users won’t have to compile Globus software, since they will have access to pre-compiled native packages.”
Martin added, ”It’s also about simplifying the configuration process – we can now claim that the installation of Globus Toolkit is truly easy. For example, a series of five simple commands will now install GRAM and GridFTP and start the services running. By following the Quickstart Guide, users can now quickly and easily set up a full Globus Toolkit environment in just a few minutes. This is a big improvement over previous versions, where we had either non-standard binary installers or source installers which in the case of GT4 could take hours to compile. Additionally, there were lots of details that could cause confusion and extend the config time in order to finally get things running.”
All native packages will be maintained in a Globus repository. The Globus team is also in the process of becoming package maintainers for various RPM and Debian repositories and will be working to include the 5.2 packages into these repositories in the near future.
The new release also includes improvements to GridFTP, the widely used, high-performance file transfer protocol that underpins the Globus Online file transfer service. For example, GridFTP has added support for the DCSC command, which allows the client to specify credentials used to secure the data channel connection. Globus Online utilizes this command for seamless data movement across multiple security domains.
In addition, the latest version of GRAM included with GT 5.2 includes a number of scalability and reliability improvements found from working with Open Science Grid (OSG) that are not in the 5.0 series. GT 5.2 also includes the latest versions of Toolkit components MyProxy and GSISSH.
GT 5.2 is protocol and client API compatible with GT 5.0 (e.g. 5.2 clients will work with GT 5.0 services, and visa versa.)
Relevant GT 5.2 links:-- Release notes: http://www.globus.org/toolkit/docs/5.2/5.2.0/rn/-- Quickstart guide: http://www.globus.org/toolkit/docs/5.2/5.2.0/admin/quickstart/-- Software: http://www.globus.org/toolkit/downloads/5.2.0/-- Documentation: http://www.globus.org/toolkit/docs/5.2/5.2.0/-- Support: http://dev.globus.org/wiki/Globus_Toolkit#Mailing_Lists
New users are encouraged to provide feedback to gt-[email protected] and [email protected]
About Globus Toolkit and Globus Online
The Globus® Toolkit is a fundamental enabling technology for grid computing, letting people share computing power, files systems and other tools securely online across corporate, institutional, and geographic boundaries without sacrificing local autonomy. The toolkit includes software services and libraries for resource monitoring, discovery, and management, plus security and file management. It is packaged as a set of components that can be used either independently or together to develop applications. Globus Toolkit’s GridFTP file transfer protocol is the foundation for Globus Online, a free file transfer service that simplifies the process of secure, reliable data movement. Globus Online automates the mundane (but error-prone and time-consuming) activity of managing file transfers, whether between supercomputing facilities or from a facility to your laptop. Globus Online significantly reduces transfer time, with some users reporting movement of terabytes of data in hours. Globus Toolkit and Globus Online are initiatives by the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, and is supported by funding from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. To get started or find out more, visit https://www.globus.org/.
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