Grid Relay Communication

Grid relay is a mechanism that enables grid-to-grid communication. The purpose of this communication is for grids to access proxy services offered by other grids.

Relay configuration sets up a trusted connection between two different grids. The different grids need not be on the same network, but the grid that initializes the relay connection, the relay child, must be able to reach the relay parent grid. One of the intended scenarios is to have the relay parent in the cloud and have relay children running in different corporate networks (on-premise grids). A relay connection can be established as long as the on-premise grid can connect to the cloud grid. Proxy method calls can flow in both directions.

Note that if the relay communication is done via a firewall, it is enough that the relay child is able to reach the relay parent. There is no need to open firewall ports in the other direction, since the relay communication can flow in both directions after the connection has been established.

Applications to be used in a relay scenario must be modified to support relay. A server application must be able to register proxy IDs under different names, so that proxy methods offered by different answering grids can be distinguished in the calling grid. A client application needs to be able to map users to different proxy methods, e.g. depending on the tenants of the users. Also, it must be possible to register the proxy IDs for the proxy mehods published by different answering grids so the client application can map different users to different answering grids/proxy methods.