LinuxNOW: A Peer-to-Peer Metacomputer for the Linux Operating System

LinuxNOW, a peer-to-peer metacomputer that simplifies the task of executing distributed computations on commodity hardware running the Linux Operating System, is presented. The metacomputer operates by creating a peer-topeer network in which overloaded nodes attempt to offload work to their peers in order to progress the computation as rapidly as possible. The topology employed obviates the need for a central point of administration or failure, and allows machines to join and leave the network in a faulttolerant, ad-hoc fashion while a computation is in progress. The system is designed to be as developer-friendly as possible by providing the infrastructure common to all distributed computations such as network communication, load balancing and fault tolerance. Developers can therefore concentrate on the implementation of the application logic itself, allowing applications to be developed more concisely and quickly than is possible using the traditional message-passing paradigm. The architecture of LinuxNOW is described in some detail, as well as some of its more noteworthy features, such as the ability to plug-in load balancing and information gathering modules. Experimental results verifying the correct operation of the system are presented. The role of LinuxNOW within the related Distributed Reconfigurable Metacomputer (DRMC) project is also discussed.