[Richyfp]

Does anyone know if Mac OS X (or Mac OS X server) will provide the ability to cluster machines and distribute threads to processors on other machines??

If so, is this ability found in Darwin at the moment or is there any indication that it will be added later? I don't really know much about the subject, but I was just wondering if it would be possible to <drool> distribute processes across a number of Dual processor G4s over Ethernet. </drool>

If anyone has any links with information about clustering and distrbuted processing or knows anything about clustering under Mac OS X, I would be most grateful. If anyone is going to make this available, I really think that it should be built by Apple at the OS level.

Richyfp

[xenon]

This is a feature of Cocoa, and has been from the start. (Back in the NeXT days.) I don't know how to use it/implement it, but it can be done.

------------------
Timothy Hatcher
Programmer/Designer @ MainNet Incorporated
__________________________________________

http://www.main-net.com

[Richyfp]

If distributed processing is a feature of the cocoa API, does that mean that all cocoa applictaions can take advantage of clustering? If so, how does the user set up the distribution? Would a "server" automatically distribute processes to clients on the network, or would it have to be configured somewhere?

Would the machines have to be specifically set up as "servers" and "clients" (by the user) or would it all be done automatically - i.e. the machine that is being operated distributes the processes to other processors on the network that have free cycles.

Sorry to ask so many questions - but this is surely one of the great hidden features of Mac OS X! Thanks to xenon for establishing that this feature exists and thanks in advance for any information anyone can provide!

[tz3gm]

so...someone answer the question can MacOSX utilize or use distributed processing?

anyone know?

i saw mention of this on macosrumors.com once and it never came back

[Richyfp]

OK, I've had a brief look on Apple's developer connection site and found the following link about distibuted objectsin Cocoa. I don't understand the vast majority of the page, but this paticular sentence was of interest:

NSConnection objects manage communication between objects in different threads or tasks, on a single host or over the network. They form the backbone of the distributed objects mechanism, and normally operate in the background.

Can anyone shed some light onto whether distributed objects can be used to cluster machines together and implement distributed processing...

[Mac_hiavelli]

I'm not sure, but maybe this site will be helpful ...
http://exodus.physics.ucla.edu/appleseed/appleseed.html

[tie]

Originally posted by Richyfp:
Can anyone shed some light onto whether distributed objects can be used to cluster machines together and implement distributed processing...

I think distributed objects are like RMI in Java. If so, then they are pretty cool.

But it does require that an application be specially written to take advantage of (of course).

[krove]

Yeah, from what I've heard/know, distributive processing can't be used for just any app (someone above referred to cocoa apps). The app must have certain characteristics that allow each thread to be independent of others, otherwise communication bottlenecks make the entire distribution of the processing pointless. For example if one were to attempt to distribute a guassian blur command in photoshop over multiple processors on a network, each thread calculates specific graphical data that is relatively dependent upon nearby graphical data being calculated by other threads. The communications required to notify the other threads of the work completed completely nulls the entire point of faster computation. However, if more independent threads are utilized in the process, the comm bottleneck is no longer a serious problem (i.e. With SETI, each unit is totally independent of the others, thus requiring no interaction between the results of each unit.)

Hope this helps understand some of the problems associated in creating distributed computing programs like SETI, etc.

krove

------------------
*The next sentence is entirely true...
*The previous sentence is most decidedly false...

[Richyfp]

Thanks for the info, everyone.

Mac_hiavelli, the link to the appleseed page is very interesting, although I can't find any information on it specifically relating to OS X (although I haven't looked thoroughly enough to know, yet). Thank you to krove for your info on the basics of where and when distributed processing can work.

Thanks agai! Keep the info coming, if you have any more...

Happy X day!