Xgrid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Xgrid | |
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 Xgrid administration tool found on Mac OS X Server |
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| Developed by | Apple Inc. |
| OS | Mac OS X |
Xgrid is computer software developed by Apple Inc.'s Advanced Computation Group which allows a group of networked computers to engage in distributed computing. Xgrid offers scientists an easy-to-implement method of exploiting previously underused computational power at a low cost: it acts as a job scheduler, distributing jobs to be executed on available computers.
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.
Xgrid is not compatible or used in Qmaster, Apples other distributed computing and rendering system. Although both services can coexist and be run together.
[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] 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] References
- Xgrid Site
- Apple's Advanced Computation Group.
- XgridDRMAA A blog on DRMAA for Xgrid
- Xgrid How-To Complete Tutorial for Xgrid and Multi-OS Support (german)
- Zilla.app Info panel.
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