A generic remote method invocation for intensive data processing

Based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Remote Method Invocation (RMI) standards, a client/server remote data analysis application has been developed for intensive data processing. This GRID oriented philosophy allows a powerful tool to maintain updated code and centralized computational resources. Another major feature is the ability to share proprietary algorithms in remote computers without the need of local code and libraries installation and maintenance. The 16 CPU Orionte cluster in operation at Centro de Fusao Nuclear (CFN) is currently used to provide remote data analysis. The codes running in languages such as Octave, C, Fortran or IDL are called through a script remote invocation and data is released to the client as soon as available. The remote calculations parameters are described in an XML file containing the configuration for the server runtime environment. Since the execution is made by calling a script any program can be launched to perform the analysis, the only requirement is the implementation of the protocol described in XML. Some plasma properties of the CFN tokamak (ISTTOK) that require heavy computational resources are already obtained using this approach, allowing ready inter-shot analysis and parameterization decisions.