INDUSTRY

Ottawa, Canada – GridIron Software today announced the release of GridIron XLR8 version 1.0, an application development tool and runtime infrastructure that makes it Profoundly 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. Distributed computing is a simple concept – divide and distribute the work ordinarily performed on a single computer amongst several computers joined together in a network. Until now, however, the complexity associated with implementing distributed computing has deterred its use beyond the esoteric and exotic. “GridIron’s mission is to get distributed computing out of the lab and into mainstream use,” said GridIron co-founder, President and CTO Steve Forde. “GridIron XLR8 puts the speed and power of a supercomputer into the hands of ordinary people who don’t have computer science degrees, such as the professional animator making the next blockbuster feature film or a home computer user editing a wedding video.” To make distributed computing more broadly accessible, GridIron XLR8 has three key product features that emphasize profound simplicity: First, GridIron XLR8 is the first commercial solution for distributed computing designed to be embedded directly into an application. Users can take advantage of the speed of distributed processing without having to change the way they use their applications. Secondly, GridIron XLR8 uses a patent pending peer-to-peer architecture with AutoGrid™. GridIron XLR8 peers are software installed on computers contributing additional processing resources. The intelligent XLR8 peers discover each other and automatically set up a processing network, distribute work, and recover from failure. This autonomic capability eliminates the requirement for an administratively intensive middleware layer, making the solution profoundly simple to manage. Finally, the XLR8 API set makes it profoundly simple for software developers to embed distributed computing within an application. All of the job control logic can be defined and controlled through the use of just six XLR8 job control functions and four job execution methods provided by application plug-ins. Additional XLR8 functions are available for data marshalling and OAM. This high-level of abstraction combined with the intelligent runtime peers significantly reduces the development effort currently associated with distributed computing. GridIron has also chosen to follow an innovative business model, offering GridIron under an open license patterned closely after the open source movement. A complete and fully functioning version of XLR8, including documentation, APIs and the GridIron XLR8 runtime software is free for development and testing purposes. Once a developer has integrated XLR8 and is ready to release their software, they simply upgrade their license to use and commercially distribute XLR8. The XLR8 APIs are available for C/C++ and Java™. The XLR8 runtime software supports Mac® OS X, Red Hat® Linux™ and Windows® XP and 2000 operating systems. GridIron XLR8 is available immediately for download at www.gridironsoftware.com.