INDUSTRY

New release of product to speed software applications using parallel distributed processing adds pioneering grid security features and powerful data transfer for grid computing - GridIron Software, a leading developer of grid computing solutions, today announced GridIron XLR8 version 2.0, an application development tool and runtime software that makes it simple to develop, use and manage software with the added speed of parallel distributed computing. GridIron XLR8 enables computationally intensive applications to run faster on multiple computers. Version 2.0 of GridIron XLR8 introduces a new security model for grid computing and powerful data transfer capabilities. "The very nature of grid computing presents huge questions of security," said Steve Forde, GridIron President and Chief Technical Officer. "By definition, executable code is distributed and run indiscriminately by many networked computers. There is currently very little preventing the code that's distributed and run on a grid from being unauthorized, or worse, malicious. Grid environments are the ultimate Trojan horse." GridIron XLR8 2.0 introduces a new grid security model comprised of two parts: job and grid authentication. The GridIron XLR8 software installed on each processing node will only execute jobs from applications authenticated by using a strong standards-based PKCS7 certificate. The GridIron XLR8 nodes all work from a grid I.D. and password model to prevent unauthorized access to grid resources. GridIron XLR8 2.0 also introduces new capabilities for rapidly transferring large amounts of data to many computers in a grid without using network-congesting technologies such as broadcasting or multicasting. The patent-pending technology allows data to be moved from one computer to all machines in a grid as quickly as it would take to move it to a single computer. Additional performance enhancements to GridIron XLR8 2.0 include better caching and a proxy for improved file handling on SMP (Symmetrical Multiple Processor) computers. With the cumulative performance improvements in version 2.0, GridIron XLR8 achieved faster results executing the NQueens problem than the MPICH implementation of the MPI message-passing standard. "The technology innovations and speed improvement we've made to GridIron XLR8 have established a new standard in application-embedded grid computing," said Mr. Forde. GridIron XLR8 2.0 is now the fastest, simplest and most secure framework for distributed computing on the planet." GridIron XLR8 version 2.0 also extends its heterogeneous operating system support of Windows XP/NT/2000/2003, Mac OS X and Linux to include support for Solaris versions 2.7, 8 and 9. The GridIron XLR8 development environment supports C/C++ and Java. GridIron XLR8 is sold and licensed in two parts. The GridIron XLR8 application developers' toolkit, or SDK, is comprised of APIs that are added to the source code of a computationally intensive application, documentation, sample applications, and other tools and materials to assist in modifying code for processing by multiple computers using the GridIron XLR8 runtime software. Once an application is fully developed and tested, a distribution agreement allows GridIron XLR8 to be distributed and sold as an integrated part of the software on either a royalty or flat-fee basis.