Before you start installing the Globus Toolkit 4.0, 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, GridFTP, Resource Management (GRAM), Replica Location Service, and Information Services (MDS2). These all run on Unix platforms only.

Additionally, there are WSRF implementations of Security, Resource Management (GRAM), Reliable File Transfer (RFT), and Information Services (Index). 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.