Thebes

Connecting the various players in any inter-process communications require that the processes be able to discover each other, can authenticate themselves, and can evaluate authentication to make authorization decisions based upon policies. This is the glue that connects resources, authentication, authorization, and discovery. Solving these problems in a scalable manner allows the creation of broadly distributed trustworthy systems capable of sharing any sort of resources.

However, scalability has been lacking to date. The Thebes project was created initially to solve these problems in the grid computing arena. Grid computing died primarily because no one was able to accomplish scalable solutions to these problems. Now the magic word is cloud computing. Unfortunately, the use cases that brought about interest in grids still remain unsolved.

Now, starting out with generous funding from Sun Microsystems, Thebes has expanded in scope to include any place where middleware is relevant. Feel free to explore the core technologies that Thebes is using, then explore the books regarding various arenas where these technologies apply.

Philosophically, the Thebes Consortium believes the following statements are true and must be considered when designing a new grid infrastructure:

* With some exceptions, resource owners generally do not care about the identities of the user.
* Resource owners should not require advanced, or pre-negotiated knowledge of remote users.
* Every resource must be able to enforce policy.
* Resource owners must be protected from execution of dangerous applications.
* Every resource must be able to track usage.
* Users prefer there be no distinction between local and grid resources in their ease of use.
* Users seldom care where their job is executing.
* Users should have automatic access to all resources whose policies they satisfy.

This site has been reorganized to reflect expansions in goals and a new site layout. If there is something you are looking for that is not yet restored, use the contact page to request it.

Finally, if you have a new book you want to enter, use the Contact page to send an email requesting an account.

Arnie Miles
01/12/2009