RE: Distributive Computing
From: "Sale, Mark" <ms93267@GlaxoWellcome.com>
Subject: RE: Distributive Computing
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 12:18:58
-0400
My (additional) cents worth.
We're currently running a home
grown application to run NONMEM on other
computers. It is really pretty
easy, just use Winsock (in VB or VC++) to
send the control file and or
data file. If you have the data file on a
network server (which we usually
do) you don't need to send the data file.
Then issue a command using TCP-IP/winsock
again to compile and run NONMEM.
when done, send the result and
any table files back. This is currently in
prototype for the machine-learning/Genetic
algorithm application for NONMEM.
Currently, it is very site specific,
meaning a winsock control is added for
each remote server (currently
1), and the computer name is added manually to
the source code. Eventually,
it will be more general (e.g., drop down menus
that tell you what servers are
available, and the load on each so you can
select them) There is a dedicated
directory on the remote server that
NONMEM runs in (at low priority).
The advantage of this is that you don't
need "full" access to the computer
(e.g, you can use anyones computer
without a security issue), because
there are only a limited number of
commands that can be issued
(writing a control file, running NONMEM and
sending the results back). In
theory, could be run on any computer
available (such as admins),
without impacting the "real" user. Since TCP-IP
only sends text, there is no
risk of an executable virus (unless you send
the source code and compile
it on the server)
I'm happy to share the VB code
to do this, but again, at this point will
require some work to set up
for a specific site.
Mark