XGrid

Imagine waking up one day to find your Mac has solved a vexing scientific problem.

Xgrid is being developed by Apple to allow mac users to easily put together a cluster of mac for CPU-intensive calculations.

Technology Preview 2 (TP2)

At present, Xgrid is available as a "Technology Preview" (a fancy name for a beta version??). In this version, Xgrid plug-ins can be written using Cocoa and XCode.

Xgrid 1.0

Announced publicly by Steve Jobs at the WWDC keynote address, and on the apple mailing list:

• The "GM" version, Xgrid 1.0, will be part of Tiger and Tiger Server (due first half of 2005)
• We are describing a new Cocoa-based API at WWDC, but it is still under NDA
• We are exploring the possibility of a Tech Preview 3 later this summer

This means that one will be able to fully integrate the power of Xgrid in its application, through a new Cocoa framework.

Pages of CocoaDev related to Xgrid:

• XGridDummyPlugin - more documentation on how to write a plug-in
• XgridCompatibleCode - retired discussion

External links related to Xgrid:

• http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/

• Apple mailing list xgrid-users : http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo (you need a username and password provided on the site)

• Daniel Cote has posted information and a tutorial at http://unu.novajo.ca/simple http://unu.novajo.ca/simple/archives/000022.html http://unu.novajo.ca/simple/archives/000023.html http://unu.novajo.ca/simple/archives/000024.html

• Daniel Cote has developed a Linux agent, still a work in progress at http://www.novajo.ca/xgridagent/

• James Reynolds from the University of Utah explains how to set up Xgrid, and how to use the custom plug-in and much more at http://www.macos.utah.edu/documentation/administration/xgrid.html

• Drew Mc.Cormack published a couple of papers on macdevcenter, on how to wrap the Xgrid command-line to run Xgrid directly from within your Cocoa application: http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/05/11/xgrid_pt1.html http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/05/18/xgrid_pt2.html

• The beep protocol used by Xgrid: http://www.beepcore.org/beepcore/home.jsp

• An Xgrid widget in Tiger? http://www.mekentosj.com/xgrid

• Xgrid Wiki http://packmug.ncsu.edu/wolfgrid/XGridWiki/pmwiki/pmwiki.php