Grid Eabled Desktop Environments: The GRENADE Project
Stephen M. Pickles, Malcom Foster, Jon MacLaren, James Marsh, Steve R. Pettifer · Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) · 2003
Exisiting Grid middleware solutions have largely neglected to provide the type of desktopintegrated graphical user interfaces chosen by the vast majority of computer users. GRENADE tackles the issues associated with projecting the emerging fundamental activities of using the Grid onto the immensely successful graphical desktop paradigm. The first release of the GRENADE software demonstrates how standard grid functionality can easily and simply be accessed from the popular KDE desktop and partly from the Windows desktop. This approach yields immediate benefits as the novice user can almost unknowingly use the grid by harnessing familiar user interface paradigms which have been extended to take advantage of the Grid. Such extensions can also provide capabilities beyond what is achievable with the simple command line tools alone. Customisation for specific applications adds another dimension, further simplifying the remote execution of complex codes yet hiding the details that make up the grid.