【正文】
from a resource provider39。s needs. Therefore, the answer to the second question is to use the applicationtailored enhancements enabled by GVFS to provide gridwide data sessions with applicationdesired performance, consistency, security, and reliability. ServiceBased Autonomic Data Management The third question is, how to manage data provisioning in a gridscale system with dynamically changing environments? Based on the GVFS approach, data sessions can be started on demand and independently customized for applications. However, in a largescale system, the management of many dynamic data sessions is another challenging task due to its plexity. Data sessions need to be dynamically established and destroyed based on the lifecycles of applications and the locations of their instantiations and data storage. Customization of data sessions also implies the consideration of various relevant factors and tuning of many parameters, in accordance with the desired behaviors and the surrounding environments. Dynamically changing application workload and resource availability further require continuous monitoring of data sessions and timely adaptation of their configurations. These requirements are often beyond the capability of endusers and even system administrators. Yet the goals of users or administrators are rather simple and explicit. For example, from an application user39。 it has also been successfully deployed in a production grid system [2][3] for several years, supporting scientific tools and users from many disciplines. The data management system proposed in this dissertation is architected to address three important questions, which are discussed in the following subsections respectively. ApplicationTransparent GridWide Data Access The first question is, how to provide applicationtransparent gridwide data access? Grids difer from traditional distributed puting environments because of their distinct characteristics, ., widearea working, heterogeneous end systems, and disjoint administrative domains. These diferences bring new challenges to data management systems, and the technologies that are successful in localarea works (LAN), ., LAN file systems, cannot be directly applied in a grid environment. Instead, grid data management needs to specifically address these unique issues. Existing solutions allow applications to access grid data through the use of specialized APIs or libraries. However, the required modifications on application sources or binaries often place a burden upon the shoulders of end users and developers, and present a hurdle to applications that cannot be easily modified. Therefore, applicationtransparency is desirable to facilitate the deployment of a wide range of applications on grids, where gridenabling should be the responsibility of the grid middleware but not the application users or developers. This dissertation presents a userlevel DFS virtualization, namely Grid Virtual File System (GVFS), for applicationtransparent grid data access. Because the wellknown DFS interface is preserved by GVFS and presented to applications, no mo