We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
Introduction
As has been demonstrated, Java is a very capable platform for many scientific computing tasks. Yet Java is still sometimes perceived as slow. While this often is a no-longer-deserved reputation, especially in Java 1.4 and later, there are definitely times when the nature of the scientific calculation is so demanding that typical desktop computing resources are insufficient. In such cases, moving portions of the calculation to a heavy-duty remote server machine, perhaps even a “supercomputer,” makes good sense. In this chapter, we introduce the concept of distributed computing.
We continue with the client/server paradigm discussed in the previous chapters, but rather than simply passing messages via socket connections, the client and server objects directly invoke methods in each other over the network. This allows for much more elaborate and productive interactions. The Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) or Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) frameworks take care of the communications, and we do not need to create our own low-level protocols as we did with sockets.
We first discuss just what distributed computing is and what form of distributed computing is of value to scientific calculations. We introduce just a little Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a visual aid to understanding the various components in a distributed application. This use of UML and the Design Pattern approach allows us to describe client/server programs in a more formal manner than in the previous chapters.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
