Before you begin

Before you start installing the Globus Toolkit 4.2.0, there are a few things you should consider. The toolkit contains many subcomponents, and you may only be interested in some of them.

There are non-web services implementations of:

  • Security (Non-WS Authentication and Authorization)
  • File Transfers GridFTP
  • Resource Management (GRAM2)
  • Replica Location Service
  • and Information Services (MDS2).
[Important]Important

These all run on Unix platforms only.

Additionally, there are WSRF implementations of:

  • Security (Delegation Service, ...?)
  • Resource Management (GRAM4)
  • Reliable File Transfer (RFT)
  • and Information Services (Index Service).
[Important]Important

All the Java clients to these services run on both Windows and Unix. The WSRF GRAM service requires infrastructure that only runs on Unix systems.

Therefore, if you are new to the toolkit and want to experiment with all of the components, you may want to use a Unix system. If you are interested in the Windows development, you may restrict yourself to the Java-based software.