Evaluating Resource Discovery Protocols for Hierarchical and Super-Peer Grid Information Systems

Most currently deployed grids adopt a hierarchical model for their information system. However, nowadays the research and development community is heading towards the use of scalable models of information services based on decentralized approaches such as the peer-to-peer paradigm. This is mainly due to the poor scalability, resiliency and load-balancing features of the hierarchical model. This paper evaluates a resource discovery protocol exploitable in a hierarchical grid and compares it with a super-peer based model which has recently been introduced. Performance analysis, carried out through simulation, shows that the hierarchical model is valuable for small and medium sized grids, while the super-peer model is better suited for very large grids