Decentralized orchestration of data-centric workflows in Cloud environments

Javadi, B., Tomko, M. and Sinnott, R. O. (2013) Decentralized orchestration of data-centric workflows in Cloud environments. Future Generation Computer Systems, 29(7), pp. 1826-1837. (doi: 10.1016/j.future.2013.01.008)

Abstract

Data-centric and service-oriented workflows are commonly used in scientific research to enable the composition and execution of complex analysis on distributed resources. Although there are a plethora of orchestration frameworks to implement workflows, most of them are unsuitable for executing (enacting) data-centric workflows since they are based on a centralized orchestration engine which can be a bottleneck when handling large data volumes. In this paper, we propose a flexible and lightweight workflow framework based on the Object Modeling System (OMS). Moreover, we take advantage of the OMS architecture to deploy and execute data-centric workflows in a decentralized manner across multiple distinct Cloud resources, avoiding limitations of all data passing through a centralized engine. The proposed framework is implemented in the context of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) project which is an initiative aiming to develop an e-Infrastructure supporting research in the urban and built environment domains. Performance evaluation results using spatial data-centric workflows show that we can reduce 20% of the workflow execution time when using Cloud resources in the same network domain.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Sinnott, Professor Richard
• Authors: Javadi, B., Tomko, M., and Sinnott, R. O.
• College/School: University Services > IT Services > E-Science
• Journal Name: Future Generation Computer Systems
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0167-739X
• ISSN (Online): 1872-7115
• Published Online: 08 February 2013