XGrid....wolf anyone?

ast3r3xast3r3x
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
i dont remember if xgrid was our name for the xserve thing or it was wolf that was the name for processor sharing over the internet



well notice the first step is already in place...apple has it for their dev tools! i'm sure they could move this down the line into the whole OS



when i saw this featuer that is the first thing i was thinking of, i'm suprised nobody talked about it until now!





imagine using a rack of XServes for a render farm through FW 800...i'm sure with the new G5's it would be VERY fast





so what do you think?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    i'm the only one who thinks this?





    (last and only bump)
  • Reply 2 of 3
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    It's great, but it's app-specific. Xcode has been designed specifically to do this. It's hard to imagine doing this for the OS - distributed window resizing? But it could be helpful for something very compute-intensive like DVD encoding.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    macserverxmacserverx Posts: 217member
    I don't know how many times I had to bump my own thread on this subject to get nothing of interest out of anyone.



    Anyway, they had Qmaster back with Shake and XCode now has distributed compiling. The thing is we haven't seen any of the underlying libraries/frameworks/APIs? or been able to look at any screenshots of Thread Viewer (Dev Tools) to see what happens or what's required.



    XGrid is Qmaster built into the kernel pretty much. Automatic discovery and configuration (Rendezvous), Load Sharing, Load Balancing. The concept of a cluster is dedicated nodes being given little pieces of a given task. A grid is more like distributed.net or SETI. Use the available power of a system to accomplished tasks more quickly.



    I made a little Cocoa app as my representation of the UI and capabilities of XGrid. It was my first experience with any Cocoa code so it doesn't demonstrate a whole lot. Basic preferences are XGrid Worker (makes computer available for doing jobs), XGrid Manager (dispatch jobs from system), availability time (Worker only when you aren't, science dep processes huge amounts of info at night), encryption (don't want your precious research getting stolen of the wire as you're processing it), and remote hosts (less likely, routing is slow, not a very faster way to get things done on the fly, best use would be in connecting to a XServe cluster, specify IP for master or whatever).



    Oh yeah, Wolf is supposedly the code-name for the project. "Wolf work great in packs but can manage alone" Whoever posted about Elvis (two-button mouse) and some other things several years ago, said that. I have what they posted somewhere. It might still be in the forums somewhere.



    That enough info?



    edit: if someone wants to play with the code of my little app (rendezvous is really whats missing to make it decently realistic) reply and I'll send it. I don't have webspace. I'll be sure to comment and provide a readme before I deliver.
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