Re: Distributed computing in Cocoa
Re: Distributed computing in Cocoa
- Subject: Re: Distributed computing in Cocoa
- From: "Craig S. Cottingham" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:52:53 -0600
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On Monday, January 28, 2002, at 05:20 , Mike Davis wrote:
There use to be something on NeXTSTEP 3.2 which allowed you to
run a process across several different hosts at the same time,
stealing CPU cycles from the slave hosts. I can't remember the
name though. It was a UNIX command line tool.
Zilla?
A little Google-digging turned up this link [1]
<
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:I2tGY6MTUfEC:www.mathsource.com/MathSource22/
Publications/Other/0203-566/NeXTstep-and-
Mathematica.ps+zilla+nextstep&hl=en>:
"Although distributed network computation in itself is not new,
the NeXT environment provides easier access to supercomputing
power for the user who needs more cycles than what a few
machines on a desktop can provide, as well as the user who does
not have the means to access supercomputer time. A NeXTstep
application called Zilla [Developed by Prof. Richard E. Crandall
of Reed College and NeXT's Chief Scientist], available with all
NeXT computers, provides a graphical interface for
supercomputing via a network of NeXT comput-ers. Through this
interface, the network can be used to create a virtual
supercomputer by distributing computations automatically among
two or more machines. Zilla can reach Cray-level supercomputer
speeds on certain problems by distributing pieces of the
problems to individual computers, running sepa-rately and often
at different times.
"For these innovative computational abilities Zilla received the
Smithsonian / Computerworld Award for Best Scientific Software
of 1991. Zilla makes it easy to parallelize Mathematica
problems. And since Mathematica is comprised of two distinct
parts--the front end and the kernel, each capable of running
separately, even on different machines--the user can, for
example, launch several Mathematica kernels on many computers
using Zilla, each kernel having a unique set of parameters,
multiplying the power of Mathematica many-fold. A network of 100
NeXTstation (TM) computers, for example--a quantity defined as
one Zilla Unit--performs like a typical supercomputer for a tiny
fraction of the cost and with none of the software conversion
and support expenses associated with traditional supercomputing.
It'd be a very cool thing for Apple to resurrect as it'd make
clustering Macs very cool - especially if you were running CGI
scripts, for instance.
I wonder if Beowulf-style clustering can easily be ported to Mac OS X?
[1] It's a little ironic, how hard it is to find some
information on NeXT on the World Wide Web.
- --
Craig S. Cottingham
email@hidden
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