gridMathematica Announced

simpl3x writes "Mathematica for grids was announced at Comdex. It offers support for the usual platforms--Windows, OS X, Linux, and Unix--and offers the ability to use heterogeneous OSes. I haven't used the product in years, but cool nonetheless. Does an off-the-shelf software package, which is scalable as this is provide competition to custom packages--is it easier to add machines than develop custom programs?" And just when you thought Comdex was good and dead.

Comments

Cool stuff... but I thought research labs

[f00zbll]

already have their own cluster, and grid systems? This should mean some small junior college or state college w/o tons of government research grants may be able to even the playing field. With the reduction of cost, it begins to make it easier for smaller research labs and schools to build grids. I remember assisting graduates studens prep processes so that it could be sent to UCSD's supercomputer. Now more universities will have their own system and be able to utilize their computer labs as grids at night. Atleast in theory.

question : OSS/free project in this space

[wfmcwalter]

Is there an open-source or free-software product in the Mathematica / Matlab / Maple etc. space ?

How to the free solutions, if they exist, compare with their (darned expensive) commercial bretheren in general, and in particular is there anything like grid support?

Re:question : OSS/free project in this space

[bezza]

There is no reason why a Matlab clone couldn't be made (it is just a interpreter with some built in numerical functions that have already been developed). Anyone can write functions to evaluate expressions numerically.

Maple on the other hand is the most amazing piece of software I have ever used because of its ability to deal with variables etc exactly like a human can. I am studying for my finals right now and I use it to do some of the more tedious work so my study is more efficient. Calculating the exponential of a matrix is tedious at best but Maple does it with ease. I don't believe a product like this could be made in the open-source evironment...a massive amount of research would have to be undertaken and this would require a heap of money, as no methodology could be taken from the Maple team itself.

I am not trolling but the open-source community is much better at creating a (usually better) alternative to existing software with an obvious algorithm or method rather than investing money into computing theory like a clone of Maple would need.

A similar example would be linux desktops...take KDE or Gnome...great desktops, but most ideas have been taken from either Windows or the Mac OS'es, who have sunk millions of dollars into market research.

As I said, I am not trolling, and am open to be proven wrong. Prior similar examples etc.?

Students

[Omkar]

Although this would be expensive, couldn't Wolfram set up a subscription service? Students who need temporary access to the power of Mathematica (I'm thinking of doctoral theses) could but computing time.

On an unrelated note, Integrals.com is one of the most useful high school math sites ever (up with Ask Dr. Math. It ended two weeks of misery by telling integral(sqrt(1+x^-4)dx) is not an elementary function.

Re:distributed functions

[orcaaa]

Actually, Mathematica, in the GUI mode, has a lot of processing overheads. And performing complex calculations can take a while. I use Mathematica regularly, and a class assignment took me 6 hours to "compile" on Mathematica. (It was about modelling proteins and showing how they evolve with time). If it indeed takes such time, then this kind of grid computing can be a boon. I can see this being used a lot in the Universities, where usually, there are a large number of computers not being used simultaneously.