Performability Modeling and Analysis of Grid Computing

Grid computing is a newly developed technology for complex systems with large-scale resource sharing, wide-area communication, and multi-institutional collaboration. Although the developmental tools and infrastructures for the grid have been widely studied, grid reliability analysis and modeling are not easy because of its largeness, complexity and stiffness. This chapter introduces the grid computing technology, analyzes different types of failures in grid system and their influence on its reliability and performance. The chapter then presents models for star-topology grid considering data dependence and tree-structure grid considering failure correlation. Evaluation tools and algorithms are developed, based on the universal generating function, graph theory, and the Bayesian approach. Illustrative numerical examples are presented to show the grid modeling and reliability/performance evaluation.