SSCRIPT TECHNICAL PAPER

Multiple Systems Automation example script
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Note: For this example to work you will need to gunzip the .gz files in
this directory. Also for the .alone example you need to merge the 2.

A task can be completed in a certain amount of time on a certain 
computer. If the computer is faster, then the amount of time is lower. 
The goal of multiple systems processing is to take the processing power
of 2 or more systems, distribute the tasks, and reduce the amount of
time the complete task takes since all the systems are working together.
This is what this example script demonstrate.

In the multi_systems_automation directory, we have the example scripts.
What they do is ask the user for a word, then checks in a 53,000 words
english dictionary to see if the word matches any known english word.

sscript.alone does the task by itself on a single computer. The time it
takes to do the job on a P133, 64M RAM, Linux system is around 537 secs.

sscript.m1 goes on a first system, and sscript.m2 goes on a second
system. They do the same thing as sscript.alone, but using the
processing power of 2 computers at once. Note that they must be
customized with the right IP address for the second system. The second
system's sscript.m2 must be started before the 1st one, so it can accept
the connection that sscript.m1 will send it. The time this takes is
about 266 secs. Which means 50% faster.

In this case, the task is simple and slow since SScript has many
variables and commands to check when doing the main for loop. It is
accomplished nearly 500 times faster with a dedicated CL (Custom
Library) made to open the file and look for the string, rather than
using a for loop. But the purpose is the same. Computing distributed on
10 computers is faster than on one. And thats what this script
succefuly demonstrates.

Other examples of this multiple systems processing work can be found at
NASA at: http://www-hpc.jpl.nasa.gov/PS/HYGLAC/hyglac.html
