A dynamically configurable environment for high performance computing

Current tools available for high performance computing require that all the computing nodes used in a parallel execution be known in advance: the execution environment must know where the different "chunks" of programs will be executed, and each computer involved in the execution must be properly configured. In this paper, we describe how the Web Operating System (WOS™) environment may be used to dynamically locate available computers to perform such computations and how these computers are dynamically configured. <br> The WOS™ (?) is a virtual operating system which is suitable for supporting and managing distributed/parallel processing on the Internet. Central to the WOS™ architecture are the communication protocols, which may be seen as the "glue" of the whole environment. Communication between nodes is realized through a generic service protocol and a simple discovery/location protocol (?).<br> The service protocol may be versioned to support specialized services. In the present research, we focus on the design of such a version for High Performance computing. This version essentially locates nodes able to execute parallel programs, identifies nodes available for participating in the parallel execution, and sets up an execution environment on the dynamically selected set of nodes.