Re: Re: [Geneticd-devel] First step toward parallel processing is done!

[Stephen W. <sw...@wa...>]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Jonny Mind wrote:

> Yes, clients can check in or out, but they can't drop.

Why can't they drop out?  More below..

> Why I did not stick to Beowolf or some other parallel computation
> environment (i.e. mosix?) Because I want GD to run on many different
> and remote servers, without having to share a common OS sublayer.

I agree, designing your own protocol rather than use MPI or other
environment is much better.

> So, we have to exhamine what happens when a slave drop it's dial-up
> connection, or breaks down. If it is running a poor genetic
> population, this is not a problem, but if the slave with the winning
> genetic falls somehow off-line forever (i.e. a blackout in local city
> power sources) this could be a disaster. We'll have to think about
> some redoundancy also...

There are two disconnection scenarios.

1) The client is shutdown "properly" by a user or system administrator.
In this case the client can attempt to send on its best bred individuals
before returning control to the operating system.

2) The client is shutdown "improperly", as in the case of a modem
disconnecting or a power-outage.  EVEN in this case, the best individuals
from the prior generation will have been sent to other clients or the
server (depending on your architecture) already.  This seems to work
pretty well in my opinion.  Think of it as a massive earthquake, volcano,
or hurricane striking one of many islands.

Again I will be able to check out the new code some day soon!

Thanks,
Steve