4. Data configuration

The data accessed by the grid jobs may simply be staged in and out by the grid system. However, depending on its size and the number of jobs, this can potentially add up to a large amount of data traffic. For this reason, some thought is usually given on how to arrange to have the minimum of such data movement on the grid.

For example, if there will be a very large number of subjobs running on most of the grid systems for an application that will be repeatedly run, the data they use may be copied to each machine and reside until the next time the application runs. This is preferable to using a networked file system to share this data, because in such a file system, the data would be effectively moved from a central location every time the application is run. This is true unless the file system implements a caching feature or replicates the data automatically.

There are many considerations in efficiently planning the distribution and sharing of data on a grid. This type of analysis is necessary for large jobs to better utilize the grid and not create unnecessary bottlenecks.