Hydra

The Hydra framework for distributed applications is still in development. So far, I have implemented the framework to do the following:

• The client contacts the main Hydra server to get a list of available projects
• The user selects the projects that he/she wants run
• The client downloads the code for those projects and runs it
• Some of the GUI - the main list that shows the projects, as well as the start/stop buttons

The portions that are currently in progress:

• The rest of the GUI, as well as applet-based and text-based versions
• A better sample task to test out the framework properly and put up a demo for public use..

Other features that I'm hoping to eventually implement:

• A P2P component to the framework so that the server load can be moved to any machine in the grid
• Persistent identification, so that users can track how much CPU time they have contributed to any given task
• Increased security on the communications between different machines - perhaps using a new protocol
• A process to accept distributed projects from the general public - this is, after all, just a framework :)