Using the Grid to Support Software Component Systems

The Grid provides a sophisticated service layer allowing users to access and manage distributed hardware resources. Grid tools such as Globus handle multiple networks, machines, binary representations of data, and scheduling policies. However, providing end users with practical tools to tie together combined hardware and software resources distributed across the Grid requires an additional software layer. The Component Architecture Toolkit (CAT) is a system based on distributed software components, which are found, instantiated, run, and connected together through a high-level visualprogramming model. This paper describes the architecture underlying the CAT, and shows example computations carried out using it.