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Alchemi 1.0: A .NET-based Enterprise Grid Framework - Released
Dec 15, 2005, Melbourne, Australia
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Alchemi (http://www.alchemi.net/) is an "open source" software framework
that allows you to painlessly aggregate the computing power of networked
machines into a virtual supercomputer (computational grid) and to
develop applications to run on enterprise grids. It has been developed
at the GRIDS Laboratory within the Department of Computer Science and
Software Engineering at the University of Melbourne, as part of the
Gridbus project (http://www.gridbus.org). The development of Alchemi is
partially sponsored by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and
Microsoft (via academic support program in Australia). Most
importantly, it is also supported by many other volunteers and community
of developers through SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/alchemi

Alchemi has been designed with the primary goal of being easy to use
without sacrificing power and flexibility and enables what we call
"plug-and-play" enterprise grid computing.

The Alchemi release packaging includes:

* The runtime machinery (Windows executables) to construct enterprise
grids.
* A .NET API and tools to develop .NET grid applications and
grid-enable legacy applications.

The main features of Alchemi v.1.0 include:
- A central Manager which controls and orchestrates operations on an
Alchemi grid.
- Executors that are installed on each grid node, and run the work units
given by the manager
- Voluntary (cycle-stealing) / Dedicate mode of execution
- Role-based security
- Enables a LAN / WAN / Internet wide grid (Executors can be configured
to work across NAT/Firewalls : voluntary execution mode)
- Threads-based grid application programming environment
- File-based job execution to grid-enable legacy batch-mode programs
- .Net based infrastructure providing a range of development options

Alchemi has been very popular and is used by people from all over the
world since early 2003. Some examples include:
- CSIRO, Australia (Alchemi-based natural resource modelling)
- Tier Technologies, USA (Large scale document processing on Alchemi)
- stochastiX GmBH, Germany (Managed XLL, Alchemi plug-in to distribute
spreadsheet computations)
- FMI Biomedical research institute, Switzerland (Detection of
transcription factor patterns of mammalian genes)
- Satyam, India (Security and life science applications)
- Correlation Systems, Israel (estimating the location of an HF radio
transmitter)
- Many other academic and industrial activities using and developing Alchemi

We would like thank all the contributors some of whom are listed below:
- Akshay Luther (Founder developer)
- Rajkumar Buyya (Mentor)
- Krishna Nadiminti (Active developer)
- Tibor Biro (Developer)
- And many others part of source-forge user/developer community who have
contributed their time and effort towards advancing Alchemi.

To download the Alchemi software, please visit the Gridbus Project web
site or Alchemi express site at: http://www.alchemi.net
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