“The most underplayed news [at Macworld Expo 2004], and yet the most interesting thing to emerge from the show in my view, was Apple’s new Xgrid application. This software is aimed at scientific applications like gene sequencing, missile trajectory calculations, cryptography and other incredibly compute-intensive applications that previously could be crunched only by supercomputers,” Yuval Kossovsky writes for ComputerWorld.
“Apple has already proved it can deliver supercomputer technology with a cluster installation at Virginia Tech, so what does Xgrid bring to the table? In typical Apple fashion, Xgrid provides an easy-to-implement solution for two common problems in the scientific community: The lack of cheap computing power, and wasted cycles on unused desktops,” Kossovsky writes.
“Think of Xgrid as a customizable SETI at Home software package for serious computing folk. The Xgrid software allows you to tie together any number of desktop machines (Apple suggests using those with G4 and G5 processors) to work as a single machine to process a job. When one of the computing hosts is idle, it can join the ‘hive’ and process part of the currently running job,” Kossovsky writes.
“I can’t stress enough how easy it was to set up this software and get Xgrid up and running. Total time invested was under an hour, including downloading the software and uninstalling it after my tests. For any scientific computing environment wishing to take advantage of unused computing cycles or wanting to achieve some form of supercomputing on a budget that doesn’t allow for InfiniBand cards and multiple racks of Xserves, this is a great application,” Kossovsky writes.
Full article here.
This is going to be nice and huge
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Seti@Home
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http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_type_3.html
Apple needs some help here
I was very interested to hear about this new application which was rumoured for a few months prior to its beta release. The mind boggles at the possibilities of something like X-Grid. Ideally it will be a no-brainer to use it in video editing for rendering complicated effects like colour correction on really long projects. Definately this is something to keep an eye on.
I still maintain that Rendezvous is more significant than Xgrid. After all its is Rendezvous that makes is so easy to set up a cluster. Is anyone sharing photos in iPhoto?
I downloaded Xgrid right after I heard about it, and poked around with it on my 15″ Al PowerBook. Curiously, I did not experience the download problems with Safari that the author described, and it downloaded and installed without a hitch. I haven’t tested clustering as yet, but I am EXTREMELY impressed with how elegant it is and easy to configure. I can’t begin to describe how excited I am about the potential uses of this application. I told my brother about it (Comp.Sci. major who recently switched to Macs), and after he downloaded and installed it, I had the pleasure of watching his eyes widen with amazement as he ran a few Unix commands and the realization dawned on him that this was something BIG. I agree with the author: this is the biggest thing to come out of the Macworld Expo.
Citizen X,
I agree with you that Rendezvous makes Xgrid possible, or at least, feasible. But sharing computer resources over a network is significantly more difficult than sharing iTunes or iPhoto libraries, and the potential uses far outweigh file sharing. Sol is correct in stating that Xgrid is mind-boggling.
OGFF:
A potentially more productive and humanitarian quest might be this one:
http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
I run ‘Folding’ and find the client much more “friendly” than SETI. It stays right out of the way. I honestly never know it is running (on my old, decrepit G3 machine), which was definitely not the case for SETI.
Just a thought.
Mike
Folding@home? How about just contacting the aliens who will GIVE us all the cures we’d ever need?
(OK… I run both SETI and Folding at times. To join Team Mac OS X just use code 71 in Folding.)
In Folding@home, Team MacOS X is 1971, not 71. Just a FYI.
On a related front, I ran that Xgrid software last night on a 400 MHz G4 and a 500 MHz G3. The combined effective speed of the two was 500 MHz. LOL. What happened to the G3? I guess a 500 MHz G3 equals a 100 MHz G4.
Nonetheless, the implications are incredible. Adobe can make an Xgrid aware plug in to allow its software to take advantage of clustering when applying filters. And since I am a graphic designer, that would be amazing. I routinely work with huge files and find myself waiting all the time to do filters and special effects on projects. Due to my lack of processing power, I find myself designing solutions that do not require too many effects.
But anyway, I am rambling. The fact of the matter is, Xgrid will change how we compute.
What about using Xgrid for an animation rendering farm? Talk about putting professional-level animation capabilities into a small shop! This is exciting technology that could reveal the future of computing.
‘Folding@home? How about just contacting the aliens who will GIVE us all the cures we’d ever need?” – Nagromme
Hah! I take it you have not seen Alien, Aliens, Alien^3, and Alien Resurrection. Not all aliens are benign. Further evidence can be found in Star Trek.
I think you may have more luck to use Folding@Home to create your own aliens. See Hollow Man for example.