Jalapeno - Decentralized Grid Computing Using Peer-to-Peer Technology

Paper in proceeding, 2005

This paper presents the Jalapeno grid computing system. Jalapeno is implemented in Java and uses peer-to-peer technology provided by Project JXTA. The Jalapeno system consists of manager, worker and task submitter hosts. The task submitter submits a collection of tasks, a task bundle, to be processed by the system to a randomly chosen manager. The manager splits the bundle into a set of new, smaller bundles which are forwarded to equally many, randomly chosen, managers which repeat the process. Each manager has a small number of connected workers. During task bundle splitting the manager may, depending on its current load, reserve a number of tasks for its workers. Workers return the results to their managers which forward them to the task submitter. The system is self configuring: hosts volunteering their computing power will at first become workers only but will eventually become managers if they can not connect to another manager within a certain time. The major contributions of this project are: an implicit hierarchy of hosts which changes randomly over time and requires no effort to maintain, a framework for applications solving embarrassingly parallel type of problems which automatically partitions the problem into smaller sub-problems and ease of use through the use of Sun’s Java Web Start technology. Two applications have been developed for the system to evaluate its performance: an RC5 key cracking application and a 3d raytracing application. The entire system is available for download at http://jalapeno.therning.org.