GridMathematica

Infobox Software
name = gridMathematica



caption =
developer = Wolfram Research
released =
frequently_updated = yes
programming language =
operating system = Cross-platform [http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/platforms/ (list)]
language = English
genre = Parallel computation
license = Proprietary
website = [http://www.wolfram.com/products/gridmathematica/ gridMathematica homepage]

gridMathematica is a product sold by Wolfram Research which is based on its main product Mathematica. gridMathematica has additional features which allow a cluster of computers to work in parallel to solve some types of problems in less time than would be possible using just one computer [ [http://www.scientific-computing.com/scwmayjun03review_wolfram.html Felix Grant tests out some of Wolfram's spin-off products, which aim to push the company into new markets] , Scientific Computing World, June 2003.] One front end is used to communicate with multiple kernels, which actually perform the computations.The computers do not need to run the same operating systems [ [http://www.gridtoday.com/02/1202/100816.html Wolfram Research Announces the release ofgridMathematica] GRIDToday Dec 2002] and includes 64bit platforms [ [http://www.scientific-computing.com/products/product_details.php?product_id=191 gridMathematica 2.2] Scientific Computing World September 2007 ]

gridMathematica consists of three components: A controlling Mathematica process which includes the standard Mathematica Front End which distributes tasks, eight worker Mathematica kernels which perform the distributed computations and the [http://www.wolfram.com/products/applications/parallel/ Parallel Computing Toolkit] developed by Roman Maeder, one of the original authors of Mathematica, which manages interprocess communication such as queueing, virtual shared memory, and failure recovery. [ [http://www.macworld.com/news/2002/11/20/mathematica/index.php gridMathematica offers parallel computing solution] , Dennis Sellers, MacWorld, November 20, 2002]

gridMathematica scales to larger grid systems with purchases of additional units of eight processes. Worker processes can be located on a single multi processor computer or distributed over a remote heterogenious network. [ [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1188720 Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE conference on Supercomputing] Roman Maeder] The communication between the kernels and the front end uses the [http://www.wolfram.com/solutions/mathlink/mathlink.html Mathlink] interface, which is an interface designed to allow external programs to communicate with Mathematica. The communication is over TCP/IP [ [http://gks06.fzk.de/slides/GridMathematica_Additive.pdf GridMathematika / Benchmark Tests] by M.Karbalai, H.Schönau, 9/14/2006.] and would use SSH or RSH for authentication.

A very similar product is [http://www.wolfram.com/products/personalgrid/ Mathematica Personal Grid Edition] . It differs in three ways from gridMathematica:
* All processes must run on the same computer.
* Only 5 kernel licences are provided, four of which are intended to be used for computations and one for housekeeping. (With some careful programming all 5 could be used for computations, but that is not intended).
* The pool of workers cannot be extended.

See also

* Mathematica
* Supercomputer

References

External links

* [http://www.winhpc.org/stories.php?story=06/10/30/0934868 An interview with Schoeller Porter, Senior Software Engineer at Wolfram Research] by Ken Farmer, WinHPC.org, Monday October 30 2006.
* [http://www.vislab.uq.edu.au/research/hpc_altix/gridmathematica/ Exploration of the capabilities of gridMathematica on the Altix ia64 HPC machines] , University of Queensland VisLab.
* [http://physunserver.furman.edu/projects/index.html Special Projects: An Evaluation of Modified Newtonian Dynamics by Simulation in a Parallel Computing Environment] , Furman University Physics Department.
* [http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/ongrid/ongrid.html Getting on the Grid] , by Jean Thilmany, Mechanical Engineering, 2003.
* [http://ganglia.cc.titech.ac.jp/batch/?gw=fwd&gs=TGC%20--%20TSUBAME%20Grid%20Cluster%40http%3A%2F%2Fganglia.cc.titech.ac.jp%2F a real-time monitor of gridMathematica's usage on the TSUBAME supercomputer in Japan]
* [http://www.wolfram.com/services/education/seminars/s17.html online recorded seminar]
* [http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~shaww/web_page/grid/ King's College London Centre for Financial Grid Computing]