[Xgrid] [ANN] OpenMacGrid Project Drive

Dear Xgrid User,

I'm sure most of you are aware that MacResearch.org recently launched the first open, Xgrid-powered distributed computing network: OpenMacGrid (http://www.macresearch.org/openmacgrid). The 'open' there refers to the fact that anyone can submit a short proposal via the MacResearch.org web site, and gain access to run computations on the grid.

OpenMacGrid has been very successful in some aspects. We managed to attract an enormous amount of attention at the launch, and this has led to a very respectable grid. Typically, there are on the order of 400-500 agent processors available at any time, with up to 1000 processors connected to the grid in total.

That's the good news. The bad news is that we are running out of things to run on it. In fact, although there have been a number of project submissions, and some are proceeding, at this point in time OpenMacGrid is all but empty. We have been a little disappointed by the level of interest shown by scientists in running calculations on the grid. The Mac-using public has been very generous in donating their idle CPUs, but the reaction of computational scientists has been luke warm at best.

This email is designed to help remedy this. Consider this an OpenMacGrid project drive. If you have code that runs with Xgrid, and could use 400-500 processors all to yourself, please fill in the online form (http://www.macresearch.org/XgridProject) so that we can crank this thing up. And even if you only need a few extra processors, please submit a proposal --- we welcome all projects, big and small.

Drew McCormack

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Drew McCormack