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Sun Releases Grid 5.2 for Linux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the put-the-boss'-computer-to-use dept.

Linux_ho writes "Grid 5.2 is a distributed processing engine that runs on Solaris, and now Linux. Apparently it has been released under an "an industry-accepted open source license" but I couldn't find out which one. The product was designed to make use of the spare cycles from any idle Solaris or Linux machines on your network. Sun mentioned in the press release that it can be used for frame rendering, but I bet you can come up with some other interesting applications. Here's the FAQ."

3 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:More distributed computing... by volsung · · Score: 4
    I've had an interest in a distributed computing framework that would allow people to create a project like seti@home, distributed.net, and the like, without having to solve the same cross-platform issues every single time.

    The basic idea is to have virtual machine (of sorts) that provides an API friendly to algorithm implementation. (Lots of math and data manipulation functions) The virtual machine can limit both CPU utilization and memory/disk usage by the actual distributed program. The program is written in a scripting langage (grab your favorite one) that can be compiled on the fly. The API functions would be implemented in the fastest possible way for each platform.

    You could designed the virtual machine so that users could easily add programs to it for background execution. The client's security would be ensured by the resource limits enforced by the virtual machine and the lack of "dangerous" features in the scripting language.

    I never was able to solve the data integrity issue in a satisfactory way, though. Rogue clients in this scheme could always submit bogus results to the server. That's not catestrophic, but it means that the distributed platform could not be used in an uncontrolled environment like the Internet. If anyone has some ideas on how to solve this problem, feel free to post or email me. (Or you could go patent them and maybe make yourself some money.)

    Oh yeah, I also thought that "Hive" would be a cool name for such a program. :)

  2. More distributed computing... by gus+goose · · Score: 4

    Grid is a push based system, monitoring the activity on a set of servers, and pushing work to the more idle ones.

    This is great, but I believe more in the Seti@home approach, let the idle servers pull work down.

    Everyone who has worked with distributed computing knows that the application really has to be designed paying carefult attention to the distribution model. How about a more generic solution, say an XML based data and programming unit (in a language with multi platform capabilities like Java or perl) queued on a controlling server, with a farm of slave servers pulling down a unit during an idle time. It sould be something similar to:

    nice -19 jobpoller --controlhost=control.server.com

    Picture this as a backend to a website processing CGI, etc.

    Anyone interested in forming a subscription based distributed computing project with me drop me a mail...

    --
    .. if only.
  3. This is a good move for Sun. by hoegg · · Score: 4
    1. Sun Microsystems is a large Corporation.
    2. Microsoft is putting a lot into its .NET initiative.
    3. Sun has been nurturing Java for over 4 years.
    4. Both .NET and Java provide platforms for distributed processing in desktop applications.

    My opinion is that this is the beginning of an enterprise computing paradigm that Sun hopes will give Java an edge in the desktop market, after Microsoft's 15 year reign.

    Imagine an entire office of computers efficiently sharing resources. I get up for coffee, my cycles are used for my co-worker's application compile. He goes to lunch, his cycles are mine for Unreal Tournament.

    I think it's got potential.