Grid computing on the .NET framework

Abstract

Grid Computing is taking a whole new shape as we speak. As more power moves to the very edges of the Internet, the stronger the role Grid computing has in the future of the Internet. Grid computing deals with the collaborative effort of multiple machines to solve a single problem. Distributed parallel computation is an old concept being introduced on the Internet as new paradigms such as peer to peer topologies are being slowly assimilated. This dissertation explains the implementation of a middleware infrastructure that enables applications developed on the Microsoft .NET Framework to use a variety of grid services through a simple interface. This infrastructure implements both a task scheduling farmer and worker nodes. The farmer allocates work chunks to worker nodes that perform the required computation and return the result. The grid architecture is based on a purely decentralised model, built on peer-to-peer technologies. Communications are based on the Microsoft .NET Remoting infrastructure.