Netsolve: a Network-Enabled Server for Solving Computational Science Problems

Abstract

This paper presents a new system, called NetSolve, that allows users to access computational resources, such as hardware and software, distributed across the network. The development of NetSolve was motivated by the need for an easy-to-use, efficient mechanism for using compu tational resources remotely. Ease of use is obtained as a result of different interfaces, some of which require no programming effort from the user. Good performance is ensured by a load-balancing policy that enables NetSolve to use the computational resources available as efficiently as possible. NetSolve offers the ability to look for compu tational resources on a network, choose the best one available, solve a problem (with retry for fault tolerance), and return the answer to the user.