Introduction to AXIS GridLink

As demand for AXIS Distributed Processing grows, it is becoming more common for our clients to set up a dedicated server farm. This farm is then shared by many AXIS users and used for both testing and production runs. The AXIS GridLink Module is a Grid solution which transforms your server farm into the image of a super computer. It is designed to reduce the waiting time for users, maximize the utilization of the farm, and allow users to submit their jobs and monitor the job status without logging on to the server.

The AXIS GridLink Controller runs as a Windows service on a machine on the server farm. When a job is submitted to the farm, it receives the request, submits it to a queue and then launches the AXIS master and helpers of the specified version to run the job. In addition, it allows the user to monitor the status of the running job upon request (through the GridLink Module utility).

AXIS GridLink Module Utility runs on the farm administrator's local machine and allows the administrator to remotely configure AXIS GridLink Controllers without logging on to the server. The utility is password-protected. The default password is "Admin" (case-sensitive). The administrator can change the password through the utility.

GridLink works with AXIS versions from 11.3.02.001. Since new features are added frequently, however, new version of AXIS may not work with older GridLink versions. In this case, GridLink may need to be upgraded. The following table is a version chart for your reference. A green cell means this version of AXIS is compatible with this version of GridLink.

 

GridLink Versions	AXIS Versions
	11302001	…	11403001	…	11501001	…	12001001	…
1.0x
1.1x
1.2x
1.3x
1.4x
1.5x
1.6x
2.0x
2.1x
2.2x
2.3x
3.0x ... ... ...

Please note that AXIS GridLink Controller and GridLink Module Utility can only run on Windows 2000 Professional, XP Professional, 2000 Server, and 2003 Server, and the AXIS GridLink Module requires the AXIS GridLink Module Licence.

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Current Release

The current version of AXIS GridLink is 3.70 (June 16, 2008).

Please download GridLink Utility from the following link, run it to install GridLink Utility, and then run GridLink Utility to install GridLink Controller Service remotely on all servers. (For users who ever used GridLink application mode, please note that, you don't need to download the controller installation package and install it on each machine any more. The utility installation package has everything that you need.)

Click Here to download the GridLink Module Utility installation package (GridLinkUtil370.exe)

Please read the "Installation Guide" for more details about installation steps.

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Release Notes for Version 3.70 (June 16, 2008)

Enhancements

• GridLink - Integration With Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server (Job #22767)

AXIS GridLink can now be integrated with Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server. If you are currently using WCCS and wish to run AXIS GridLink on a cluster, you can select "Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster" from "Enterprise Grid" page in "Farm Settings" dialog in GridLink Utility, and enter the required information (the name of the head node of the cluster and the user account). The cluster will share the CPU resources between AXIS and other HPC applications.

• GridLink - Associate Drive Mapping With Access Group (Job #23369)

Now a drive mapping information can be specified to apply for all Access Groups, or selected Access Groups only. Therefore, users using different Access Groups can have different drive map settings.

Please note that we have enforced drive mapping checking. AXIS remote job will not start if any of the drive mappings specified in the Farm Settings dialog using GridLink Utility and applicable to the user didn’t succeed.

Bug Fixes

• GridLink - Backup Job Does Not Stop At Specified End Time  (Job #23717)

A backup job may not stop properly in the following situations:

1. The end time of the backup job is close to midnight (e.g. 11:59pm)
2. The start and end time of the backup job are specified to run past midnight. (e.g. Start at 8:00pm and ends at 2:00am)

This bug was introduced in GridLink version 2.30 - 14 Feb 07, and has now been fixed.

• GridLink - Farm Splitting Problem  (Job #23859)

When remote jobs started in more than one queue, some server might run more AXIS copies than the number of CPU cores.

This bug was introduced in GridLink version 3.20 - 10 Aug 07, and has now been fixed.

Release Notes for Version 3.62 (May 15, 2008)

Bug Fixes

• GridLink - Allow Backup Jobs To Run Through Midnight  (Job #23623)

A backup job currently cannot be scheduled past midnight if the end time is earlier than the start time. e.g. 11:00pm to 1:00am.

This should be allowed by assuming the end time is specified for the next day. A message will be issued to confirm that the job should run through until the next day.

Also, in GridLink Utility, the start/end time for a backup job has been changed from the AM/PM format to 24 hour format.

This bug was introduced in GridLink version 2.30 - 14 Feb 07, and has now been fixed in GridLink version 3.62.

Release Notes for Version 3.61 (May 8, 2008)

Enhancements

• GridLink - Transfer Farm Settings Between Two Separate Farms (Job #23582)

When setting up a new farm, now you have an easy way to transfer all farm settings from an existing farm to the new one, without having to re-enter all the information.

In GridLink Utility, do the following:

1. select from the menu "Farm Profile - Create Farm Profile"

2. choose "The new farm uses configurations retrieved from an existing server"

3. enter the name of one of the servers on the old farm

4. turn on the option "Only retrieve the farm settings, excluding the list of computers"

Click on OK button and you will get all settings transferred to the new farm profile.