Dynamically Scalable, Heterogeneous and Generic Architecture for a Grid of Workstations

Abstract This paper presents the architectural design of a simple Grid which supports heterogeneous workstations running different operating systems. The workstations need not be dedicated systems enabling more than one job to be executed on the same Grid of workstations. Additionally, the architecture is dynamically scalable as workstations can enter and exit the Grid even when the Grid is currently executing a task. This is achieved by using an Intelligent Job Allocation mechanism that makes use of a history of stored records for job allocation and monitoring. Also, the Grid is generic in nature implying that a whole gamut of applications from simple arithmetic calculations to image processing applications can be run. Transparency of operations is an important goal of the architecture.

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