Application Specification Language (ASL) – A Language for Describing Applications in Grid Computing

Abstract

Grid computing is the computing infrastructure of the next century where unlimited hardware and software resources are delivered to user’s fingertips. Much of the power delivered by grid computing is realized through application software made readily available to its users. The process of application deployment and deliverance to the end-users though is perplexed with options and requirements not readily available to application deployers. In this paper, we present a new grid language called Application Specification Language (ASL), which allows application developers to describe their individual applications. Application descriptions include general application information, installation requirements, invocation requirements, as well as any additional hints or suggestions that are applicable for the application. We present an ASL schema and provide examples of language use showing how adoption of ASL alleviates some of the deployment and runtime difficulties.