Federated clusters using the transparent remote Execution (TREx) environment

Due to the increasing complexity of scientific models, large-scale simulation tools often require a critical amount of computational power to produce results in a reasonable amount of time. For example, multi-system wireless network simulations involve complex algorithms of traffic balancing and communication control on large geographical areas. Moreover many of these intensive applications are designed for single sequential machines and large sums of money are spent on purchasing powerful servers that can give results in a satisfactory amount of time. The aim of this paper is to introduce a general-purpose tool, dubbed transparent remote execution (TREx), which avoids resorting to expensive servers by providing a cost effective, high performance, distributed solution. TREx is a daemon that dynamically exploits idle operational in-use workstations. Based on elaborate rules of computational resource management, this daemon permits a master to scan workstations within a predefined subnetwork and share the workload among the least occupied processing elements. It also provides a clear framework for parallelization that applications can exploit. By providing a simple way of federating computational resources, such a framework could drastically reduce hardware investments.