Advanced Resource Connector

ARC

ARC logo and monitor screenshot
Developer(s)	NorduGrid, NeIC, EU projects
Initial release	April 13, 2004; 13 years ago (2004-04-13)
Stable release	15.03 update 17 / 12 October 2017
Written in	C++
Operating system	Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Available in	English, Russian, Swedish
Type	Grid computing
License	Apache License 2.0
Website	www.nordugrid.org

Advanced Resource Connector (ARC) is a grid computing middleware introduced by NorduGrid. It provides a common interface for submission of computational tasks to different distributed computing systems and thus can enable grid infrastructures of varying size and complexity. The set of services and utilities providing the interface is known as ARC Computing Element (ARC-CE). ARC-CE functionality includes data staging and caching, developed in order to support data-intensive distributed computing. ARC is an open source software distributed under the Apache License 2.0.

ARC appeared (and is still often referred to) as the NorduGrid middleware, originally proposed as an architecture on top of the Globus Toolkit optimized for the needs of High-Energy Physics computing for the Large Hadron Collider experiments. First deployment of ARC at the NorduGrid testbed took place in summer 2002, and by 2003 it was used to support complex computations.

The first stable release of ARC (version 0.4) came out in April 2004 under the GNU General Public License. The name "Advanced Resource Connector" was introduced for this release to distinguish the middleware from the infrastructure. In the same year, the Swedish national Grid project Swegrid became the first large cross-discipline infrastructure to be based on ARC.

In 2005, NorduGrid was formally established as a collaboration to support and coordinate ARC development. In 2006 two closely related projects were launched: the Nordic Data Grid Facility, deploying a pan-Nordic e-Science infrastructure based on ARC, and KnowARC, focused on transforming ARC into a next generation Grid middleware.

ARC v0.6 was released in May 2007, becoming the second stable release. Its key feature was introduction of the client library enabling easy development of higher-level applications. It was also the first ARC release making use of open standards, as it included support for JSDL. Later that year, the first technology preview of the next generation ARC middleware was made available, though was not distributed with ARC itself. The new approach involved switching to a Web service based architecture, and in general a very substantial re-factorisation of the core code.