A software facility for load sharing and parallel processing in workstation environments

Abstract

The authors describe the software architecture of a distributed facility called REM (remote execution manager), which has been developed to enable the user of an engineering workstation to benefit from the idle processing power of other workstations in a local network. REM has been implemented at application layer to make it portable without any need to modify the underlying kernel. The system provides the facility for load sharing as well as parallel processing within a local network of workstations. The REMs are grouped into functional units called suites, which are responsible for execution of different jobs submitted by the user. Several suites of REMs may exist in a network. Process replication is used to achieve fault tolerance in case a station crashes or is withdrawn from the pool of processors by its owner.<>