T
he last few weeks have been crazy busy and, as usual, blogging has, for the most part, fallen by the wayside. I even let the Digipede Network 1.3 product release slip by with nary a mention!
John and I were at
GridWorld (he was
giving talks and
receiving awards, I was learning about data grids and talking to partners) when the
press release went out.
There are some very cool features in this release--here are a few (and why I think they're cool). Note that this isn't a comprehensive list; shoot me an e-mail if you're interested in one of those.
Task Progress Reporting: The Digipede Framework now allows distributed applications to report progress information back to the server during tasks--so those long running tasks can give feedback on how they're going
Windows CCS Integration: Want to use the Digipede Network to run jobs on those hot new CCS nodes, but make sure that you're not stealing cycles from the cluster's important jobs? No problem. The Digipede Agent can now monitor the CCS job scheduler and stop using the node whenever it's being used by CCS.
Major API Additions: This list is long! Now you have programmatic access to the pools on the system and to all jobs on the system. There are many new helper methods that make grid-enabling your .NET applications (or, as Greg Nawrocki would say, "virtualizing your applications") easier than ever.
Improved Debugging: Speaking of .NET applications, those are easier than ever to debug, thanks to some new methods on the DigipedeClient and JobTemplate.
AsyncResult pattern: In addition to the asynchronous pattern that we featured in previous releases (XXXXAsync), we're now supporting the BeginXXXX/EndXXXX pattern.
Monitor system from Workbench: Digipede Workbench is a job submission tool, not a system administration tool. Still, you might want to start Workbench in the morning and look at all the jobs that ran last night, right? Maybe attach it to a running job and follow its progress, or see which tasks ran on which machine? Bingo. It's in there.
Everyone here did a great job on this release, but special thanks go out to Rob, Mark, and Jeff.
No time to celebrate, though...we've got product plans to finish for upcoming releases. And evermore publicity, too. Look for a post soon that details some exciting upcoming events: MSDN webcasts, magazine articles, and more!
Thanks to the
Web2.0 Logo Creator by Alex P for the logo.
Update 2006-09-20 9:50pm: At Rob's suggestion, I clarified the description of the async pattern.
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