I am a Database Admin in a Metropolitan Planning Organization, therefore we process many complex, resource-intensive models focusing on things like transportation and air quality. We are planning for the next generation of modeling technology and wish to incorporate distributed computing into the mix. We desire this since the current models can take up to 40 hours to process on a single workstation/server. The "next generation" model will consist of around 5 million independent tasks that will come together once all of the tasks are completed. We wish to spread this processing over the 100 or so PCs we have in the office, utilizing their idle CPU time.
I'm looking for some very specific advice, but all the information you can give would be much appreciated. 1) We're trying to decide what language to develop our models in to most easily coexist with grid computing code. My research has shown that Java and .NET are the two most widely used grid computing bases. Which do you all recommend? Or, is there some other technology that you recommend? 2) What third party package, open source package, or other software would you recommend to most efficiently implement this solution focusing on performance? My research has shown that Digipede, Platform Computing, and Alchemi are some of the more popular grid computing platforms that work in Windows....what do you think about these? We are open to Linux/UNIX as well, but for ease of implementation, Windows is what we're currently running. I appreciate any info you can provide and look forward to hearing back from you, Russell
