NetSolve

NetSolve was a distributed computing system developed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, beginning in the early 1990s and significantly enhanced through the 2000s. Its primary goal was to provide transparent access to computational resources across a network, allowing users to easily utilize remote servers to solve complex problems without needing detailed knowledge of the remote system's hardware, software, or configuration.

NetSolve functioned as a client-server system. Clients, typically applications or users seeking to solve a computational problem, sent requests to a central NetSolve server. This server acted as a resource broker, matching the request to a suitable available server based on factors like computational capabilities, software availability, and system load. The chosen server then performed the computation and returned the result to the client.

Key features of NetSolve included:

• Problem-solving environment: It facilitated the construction of complex applications by abstracting the details of distributed computing.

• Resource discovery and allocation: The NetSolve server dynamically identified available computational resources and allocated them to users based on their needs.

• Fault tolerance: The system included mechanisms for detecting and recovering from server failures. If a server failed during computation, the job could be automatically reassigned to another available server.

• Heterogeneity: NetSolve supported a wide range of hardware and software platforms, allowing users to leverage diverse computational resources.

• Security: Security features were implemented to protect data and resources.

While NetSolve was innovative and influential in the field of distributed computing, it is no longer actively maintained. Its legacy lives on in subsequent distributed computing systems and grid computing technologies. The project officially ended its development phase in the mid-2000s.