Women in Technology

Article:		Integrating Xgrid into Cocoa Applications, Part 2
Subject:		Node List
Date:		2004-05-21 08:22:02
From:		cyberassassin
I hope this article continues, this is a very interesting example, and I can think of dozens of implementations.... One thing I would like to know how to do is the node drawer similiar to the drawer in Apple's XGrid BLAST app. The drawer tells you the number of available nodes (XGrid Agents), the number of working nodes, and the available aggregate CPU Power. This would make a great addition to the Photo Industry app. Maybe the next article.... Also interesting is the tachometer, or other graphic representation of cluster computing power.... Thanks for covering this. I find it some of the more fascinating stuff coming out of Apple, and hope to see your prediction of a XGrid API soon. And here's hoping for more articles relating to XGrid

Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.

• Node List
  2004-05-25 11:32:55  drewmccormack [View]
  
  
  You can get the information you need for the drawer using various xgrid options. Here is a bit of output to various commands I issued on my iBook:
  
  

  
  
  drew ibook: xgrid -h localhost -node list
  
  {
  
      nodeIdentifierArray = ("Drew McCormack\U2019s Computer", DrewMcCormacksiBook); 
  
      nodeListIdentifier = Rendezvous; 
  
  }
  
  drew ibook: xgrid -h localhost -node status -id DrewMcCormacksiBook
  
  {
  
      currentCPUPower = 0; 
  
      currentTaskCount = 0; 
  
      nodeName = DrewMcCormacksiBook; 
  
      nodeState = Available; 
  
  }
  
  drew ibook: xgrid -h localhost -node info -id DrewMcCormacksiBook
  
  {maximumCPUPower = 600; maximumTaskCount = 1; nodeName = DrewMcCormacksiBook; }
  
  

  
  
  As you can see, you can list the nodes that a controller has access to. You can also get info about each node in the list, with -node info, and you can see whether a node is available with -node status.
  
  You can use this info from Cocoa using NSTask. Note that output of these commands is in the form of property lists, so you can easily read the information into Cocoa using methods like dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:.
  
  Hope this helps.
  
  Drew