A metacomputing environment for demanding applications: design, implementation, experiments and business benefit

A metacomputing environment is presented, suitable for the efficient execution of computationally intensive parallel jobs that may require/generate large volume of data. A cluster of networked computing nodes as a physical layer to the distributed architecture is considered. A job model for the submitted tasks is presented that derives from real-life application areas. The proposed distribution of work over the nodes of the execution network is proven optimal, in terms of minimizing the execution time, with respect to the availability of resources. We conclude by presenting our experience of resting the environment for computing-intensive 3D rendering jobs derived from the ESPRIT project EROPPA.