User:Atyndall/AIP/Xgrid
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| Xgrid | |
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| Image:Xgrid-icon.gif | |
| 200px Xgrid administration tool found on Mac OS X Server |
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| Developed by | Apple Inc. |
| OS | Mac OS X |
| Platform | Independent |
| Development status | Active |
| Genre | Distributed computing |
| License | Proprietary EULA[1] |
| Website | www.apple.com/macsox/features/xgrid/ |
Xgrid is a distributed computing protocol developed by the Advanced Computation Group subdivision of Apple Inc, it allows a group of networked computers to contribute their processing power to the same task. Xgrid provides network administrators an easy-to-implement method of exploiting previously unused computational power at low cost. The program acts as a job scheduler, splitting and allocating tasks to available computers.[2]
With the inclusion of the Xgrid agent in Mac OS X v10.4, Apple increased its potential usage greatly: however, their decision to provide a graphical controller interface only to Mac OS X Server systems has limited the efforts by the computer community to embrace the platform. However, Apple's Xgrid GUI can be downloaded for free as part of their Server Admin Tools [1], which can be run on any mac running 10.5. Those that have succeeded in spite of this include Xgrid@Stanford and BLAST.
Despite the lack of a graphical controller interface in the standard (non-server) Mac OS X distribution, it is possible to set up an Xgrid controller via the command line tools xgridctl and xgrid. Instructions can be obtained through their respective man pages (e.g. in the Terminal, type: man xgridctl). Once the Xgrid controller daemon is running, it is possible to administer the grid with Apple's Xgrid Admin tool (the same GUI they include with the Mac OS X Server Admin Tools). Some applications, such as VisualHub, provide Xgrid controller capability through their user interfaces.
Contents |
[edit] Protocol
[edit] Known Uses
[edit] History
OPENSTEP, the operating system used to create Mac OS X, had a "demo" application called Zilla.app, which was used for the same purposes as Xgrid, namely, to run several machines as a "community supercomputer" where "volunteered machines are used to participate in parallel computations".
Zilla.app has established a number of results, such as factoring a number of RSA challenges in Spring 1991, and establishing the compositeness of the Mersenne number M500249.
[edit] Third-party tools
- A graphical interface, "xgridlite" for the xgrid controller can be found at http://edbaskerville.com/software/xgridlite/
- GridStuffer, developed by the Xgrid@Stanford team, provides a graphical interface for submitting Xgrid command line jobs. -->
[edit] References
- ^ Mac OS X 10.5 SLA (PDF) (English). Apple Inc. (2005-03-09). Retrieved on 2008-06-12.
- ^ Xgrid: High Performance Computing for the Rest of Us (HTML) (English). Apple Inc. (2005-03-09). Retrieved on 2008-06-12.
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Category:Apple Inc. software Category:Job scheduling Category:Mac OS X Server Category:Distributed computing
