Advanced Resource Connector

ARC appeared (and is still often referred to) as the NorduGrid middleware, originally proposed as an architecture on top of the Globus Toolkit{{cite journal|last=Ellert|first=Mattias|author2=Konstantinov, Aleksandr|author3= Kónya, Balázs|author4= Smirnova, Oxana|author5= Wäänänen, Anders|year=2003|title=The NorduGrid project: using Globus toolkit for building GRID infrastructure |journal=Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A|volume=502|issue=2–3|pages=407–410|doi=10.1016/S0168-9002(03)00453-4|bibcode=2003NIMPA.502..407E}} optimized for the needs of High-Energy Physics computing for the Large Hadron Collider experiments.{{cite book|last=Wäänänen|first=Anders|author2=Ellert, Mattias|author3= Konstantinov, Aleksandr|author4= Kónya, Balázs|year=2002|chapter=An Overview of an Architecture Proposal for a High Energy Physics Grid|title=Lecture Notes in Computer Science|publisher=Springer|volume=2367|pages=76–86|doi=10.1007/3-540-48051-X_9|editor1-last=Fagerholm|editor1-first=Juha|editor2-last=Haataja|editor2-first=Juha|editor3-last=Järvinen|editor3-first=Jari|editor4-last=Lyly|editor4-first=Mikko|editor5-last=Råback|editor5-first=Peter|editor6-last=Savolainen|editor6-first=Ville|isbn=978-3-540-43786-4}} First deployment of ARC at the NorduGrid testbed took place in summer 2002, and by 2003 it was used to support complex computations.{{cite journal|last=Eerola|first=Paula|year=2003|title=Atlas Data-Challenge 1 on NorduGrid|journal=Proceedings of 2003 Conference for Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics|arxiv=physics/0306013|display-authors=etal|bibcode=2003physics...6013E}}

The first stable release of ARC (version 0.4) came out in April 2004 under the GNU General Public License. [http://www.nordugrid.org/middleware/release_notes_0_4.html ARC 0.4 Release Notes] The name "Advanced Resource Connector" was introduced for this release to distinguish the middleware from the infrastructure. In the same year, the Swedish national Grid project Swegrid became the first large cross-discipline infrastructure to be based on ARC.{{cite journal|year=2004|title=SweGrid gets set for future challenges |journal=CERN Courier |url=http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29086}}

In 2005, NorduGrid was formally established as a collaboration to support and coordinate ARC development.[http://www.nordugrid.org NorduGrid Web site] In 2006 two closely related projects were launched: the Nordic Data Grid Facility, deploying a pan-Nordic e-Science infrastructure based on ARC, and KnowARC, focused on transforming ARC into a next generation Grid middleware.{{cite web | url=https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/032691 | title=Grid-enabled know-how sharing technology based on ARC services and open standards}}

ARC v0.6 was released in May 2007, becoming the second stable release.[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/0_4/release_notes_0_4.html ARC 0.6 Release Notes] Its key feature was introduction of the client library enabling easy development of higher-level applications. It was also the first ARC release making use of open standards, as it included support for JSDL. Later that year, the first technology preview of the next generation ARC middleware was made available, though was not distributed with ARC itself.{{Cite web |url=http://www.knowarc.eu/documents/Knowarc_D5.1-2_07.pdf |title=KnowARC report D5.1-2_07 |access-date=2009-08-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101108234355/http://www.knowarc.eu/documents/Knowarc_D5.1-2_07.pdf |archive-date=2010-11-08 |url-status=dead }} The new approach involved switching to a Web service based architecture, and in general a very substantial re-factorisation of the core code.{{cite book|last=Smirnova|first=Oxana|year=2009|chapter=ARC middleware:evolution towards standards-based interoperability|title=Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics|chapter-url=https://indico.cern.ch/event/35523/contributions/839701/attachments/705051/967902/20090326-oxana.pdf|display-authors=etal}}

In 2008, the NorduGrid consortium adopted the Apache License for all ARC components.{{Cite web |url=https://github.com/nordugrid/arc/commits/master/LICENSE| title=NorduGrid ARC License}}

The last stable release in the 0-line was ARC v0.8, shipped in September 2009.[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/0_8/release_notes_0_8.html ARC 0.8 Release Notes] It eventually included a preview version of the new execution service - the A-REX - and several other components, such as Chelonia, ISIS, Charon and the arcjobtool GUI.[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/0_8/release_notes_0_8_2.html ARC 0.8.2 Release Notes]

In parallel to ARC v0.8, the EU KnowARC project released in November 2009 the conceptual ARC NOX suite, which was a complete Grid solution, fully based on Web service technologies.[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/nox-1_0_0/release_notes_nox-1_0_0.html ARC NOX Release Notes] The name NOX actually indicates the release date: November of the Year of the Ox.

In May 2011, NorduGrid released ARC v11.05 (adopting Ubuntu versioning scheme this time). This release marked the complete transition from the old execution service to A-REX and accompanying services. For backwards compatibility with the existing infrastructures, old interfaces for the execution service and the information system were retained.[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/11.05/release_notes_11.05.html ARC 11.05 Release Notes]

ARC 6 was released in May 2019[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/6.0/release_notes_6.0.html ARC 6 Release Notes] and while having same interfaces it features a completely redesigned configuration and a new management tool.[https://www.nordugrid.org/arc/arc6/ ARC 6 Documentation]

ARC is free software available from the NorduGrid public repository, both as binary packages for a variety of Linux systems and source, as well as on GitHub.{{cite web |title=NorduGrid ARC |url=https://github.com/nordugrid/arc |website=GitHub}} The open source development of the ARC middleware is coordinated by the NorduGrid collaboration. Contributions to the software, documentation and dissemination activities are coming from the community and from various projects, such as the EU KnowARC and EMI projects, NDGF, NeIC and various national infrastructure and research projects.

Between 2011 and 2018 ARC used an Ubuntu-like versioning schema for bundled releases consisting of individual components. Individual components have own versioning, corresponding to code tags.[http://www.nordugrid.org/arc/releases/ ARC releases table] Version of the core ARC packages is often used instead of the formal release number in everyday communication. Starting with ARC6 (2019) version number of the release coincides with that of the tag.

ARC implements several Open Grid Forum standards, in particular, JSDL, Glue2, BES, UR/RUS and StAR.{{cite report |author=W. Qiang |date=31 October 2012 |title=Transparent use of open standards in the EMI component ecosystem |url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/1277531 |publisher=CERN}}

In 2010-2013, several key ARC components - most notably, HED, A-REX, clients and libraries - were included in the European Middleware Initiative (EMI) software stack. Through EMI, ARC became a part of the Unified Middleware Distribution (UMD) of the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI).

ARC is the basis of the computing infrastructure of the Nordic Data Grid Facility (NDGF), which constitutes a Tier1 center of WLCG. In 2006-2010 NDGF actively contributed to ARC development, and since 2010 provides ARC deployment expertise within EGI. Since 2012, NDGF became a part of the Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration as a Nordic Tier-1 (NT1) project.[http://www.neic.no NeIC Web site]

Grid-enabled Know-how Sharing Technology Based on ARC Services and Open Standards (KnowARC) was a Sixth Framework Programme Specific Targeted Research Project, funded under Priority IST-2005-2.5.4 "Advanced Grid Technologies, Systems and Services" from June 2006 to November 2009.[http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=PROJ_IST&ACTION=D&DOC=1&CAT=PROJ&QUERY=1183640523127&RCN=80124 KnowARC fact-sheet], EU IST database{{cite journal|last=Hämmerle|first=Hannelore|author2=Crémel, Nicole|date=November 2006|title=KnowARC project gets going|journal=CERN Courier|location=Geneva, Switzerland|volume=46|issue=11|pages=12 |url=http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29744}} In many ways it was the project that shaped ARC. The main goal was to make ARC based on open community standards, and among the key results was creation of the standardized Hosting Environment for ARC services (HED).

Apart from its main aim of further developing ARC, it contributed to the development of standards,{{cite book|last=Field|first=Laurence|author2=Andreozzi, Sergio|author3= Kónya, Balázs|title=2008 IEEE Fourth International Conference on eScience |chapter=Grid Information System Interoperability: The Need for a Common Information Model |year=2008|pages=501–507|doi=10.1109/eScience.2008.159|isbn=978-1-4244-3380-3|s2cid=11545984}} and increased Grid and ARC usage in medicine and bioinformatics.{{cite journal|last=Zhou|first=Xin|year=2009|title=An Easy Setup for Parallel Medical Image Processing: Using Taverna and ARC|journal=Studies in Health Technology and Informatics|volume=147|issue=Healthgrid Research, Innovation and Business Case|pages=41–50|doi=10.3233/978-1-60750-027-8-41|pmid=19593043|display-authors=etal}}{{cite journal|last=Krabbenhöft|first=Hajo|author2=Möller, Steffen|author3= Bayer, Daniel|year=2008|title=Integrating ARC grid middleware with Taverna workflows|journal=Bioinformatics|volume=24|issue=9|pages=1221–1222|doi=10.1093/bioinformatics/btn095|pmid=18353787 |doi-access=free}}

In July 2009, KnowARC announced it contributed to the integration of Grid technologies into official Linux repositories by adding Globus Toolkit components into Fedora and Debian repositories.{{cite news|url=http://www.hpcwire.com/topic/middleware/KnowARC-Project-Brings-Grids-to-Debian-50368972.html |title=KnowARC Project Brings Grids to Debian |date=July 9, 2009 |publisher=HPC Wire |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090905195538/http://www.hpcwire.com/topic/middleware/KnowARC-Project-Brings-Grids-to-Debian-50368972.html |archivedate=September 5, 2009 }}

• European Grid Infrastructure
• European Middleware Initiative
• Nordic Data Grid Facility
• NorduGrid

• {{cite journal|last=Qiang|first=Weizhong|author2=Konstantinov, Aleksandr|date=June 2009|title=Towards cross-middleware authentication and single sign-on for ARC Grid middleware|journal=Computer Science - Research and Development|volume=23|issue=3–4|pages=267–274|doi=10.1007/s00450-009-0084-6|s2cid=14837386}}
• {{cite journal|last=Anderlik|first=Csaba|author2=Gregersen, Anders Rhod|author3= Kleist, Josva|author4= Peters, Anders|author5= Saiz, Pablo|year=2008|title=ALICE-ARC Integration|journal=Journal of Physics: Conference Series|volume=119|issue=62006|pages=6pp|doi=10.1088/1742-6596/119/6/062006|bibcode=2008JPhCS.119f2006A|s2cid=250672206 |doi-access=free}}
• {{cite book|last=Jensen|first=Henrik Thostrup|author2=Kleist, Josva|author3= Leth, Jesper Ryge|title=Advances in Grid Computing - EGC 2005 |chapter=A Framework for Job Management in the NorduGrid ARC Middleware |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |year=2005|publisher=Springer|location=Berlin/Heidelberg|volume=3470|pages=861–871|doi=10.1007/11508380_88|isbn=978-3-540-26918-2}}

• [http://www.nordugrid.org/middleware/ NorduGrid official website for the Advanced Resource Connector middleware]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20061006044243/http://www.knowarc.eu/ KnowARC], EU project contributing to the Advanced Resource Connector middleware development
• [http://www.ndgf.org Nordic DataGrid Facility], a Nordic project contributing to the Advanced Resource Connector middleware development
• {{cite web |title= Swegrid |url= http://www.snic.vr.se/projects/swegrid/ |access-date= 2012-07-02 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120721212930/http://www.snic.vr.se/projects/swegrid |archive-date= 2012-07-21 |url-status= dead }} (Sweden)
• {{cite web|title=FGI |url=http://www.csc.fi/english/research/Computing_services/grid_environments/fgi/index_html |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502002114/http://www.csc.fi/english/research/Computing_services/grid_environments/fgi/index_html |archivedate=2012-05-02 }}: Finish Grid Infrastructure
• {{cite web |title= Norgrid |url=http://www.norgrid.no/}} (Norway)
• {{cite web |title= SwiNG |url=http://www.swing-grid.ch/}}: Swiss National Grid Association
• [http://www.ogf.org Open Grid Forum], the home of Grid standards
• {{cite web |title= NeIC|url= http://www.neic.no/}}: Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration

Category:Middleware

Category:Grid computing products