Alchemi Enterprise Grid (v.1.0.beta) technology released.

Dear All,

The Gridbus Project has just released our Enterprise Grid software
(Alchemi 1.0 beta). For more details, pls see attached release notes.
Several colleagues around the world are using Alchemi and some
applications are listed at:
http://www.alchemi.net/projects.html
If you are using early version of Alchemi, we encourage you to try this
and let us know your experience -- so that we can move full/stable
release of alchemi 1.0. Of course, new users are encouraged to this
version!

Cheers
Raj


Subject:
Alchemi v.1.0.beta released.
From:
Krishna Nadiminti <kna@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:
Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:15:17 +1000
To:
undisclosed-recipients:;

Hi Everyone,

Finally, after a lot of unavoidable delays, we are pleased to announce
that Alchemi v.1.0.beta is out now. It can be downloaded from
www.alchemi.net
This release includes many bug fixes, and new features such as service
mode operation (both Manager and Executor) , logging, and auto-updates.

For more details, please have a look at the release notes at
http://www.alchemi.net/files/1.0.beta/ReleaseNotes.1.0.txt
Also be sure to check the user manual at:
http://www.alchemi.net/files/1.0.beta/docs/AlchemiManualv.1.0.pdf

We would like to thank everyone in the users / developers community for
supporting Alchemi and keeping the discussions alive.

Krishna Nadiminti.



----------------------------------
Alchemi v.1.0 (beta) Release Notes
July 5, 2005
----------------------------------

Changes from v0.8.0:
--------------------
- The Manager and Executor can both now run in two modes:
- as a normal desktop application
- as a windows service

- The Service mode includes a GUI Service controller, which looks
exactly like the desktop application version. This can be used to
start/stop the service and change the settings for the
Manager/Executor. The Services are configured to startup automatically
by default. This can be changed using the standard Windows Service
Control Manager.
Note: The Executor works only in the dedicated-mode while running as a
service.

- The Manager and Executor have advanced logging capabilities enabling
easier reporting of errors. The logging is enabled by default, and uses
the log4net APIs. This includes detailed debug information which is
useful while tracking possible bugs. The logging settings cab ne
changed using the Alchemi.Manager.exe.config for the Manager and the
Alchemi.Executor.exe.config file for the Executor. The Manager produces
the log file: alchemi-manager.log while the Executor logs its
information in alchemi-executor.log.

- The Manager and Executor have the capability to automatically update
themselves. The update process is actuated manually by the user via the
"Help > Check for updates" menu option. This begins the update process
with the Manager/Executor checking for updates from a predefined
location. The update process is described in detail in the
documentation.

- The Executor can now detect if a Manager is disconnected and this
launches a seperate thread to try and connect to the manager again.

- The Executor Heart-beat and other additional connection settings
(such as those which define parameters for actions when a Manager is
disconnected) are configurable through the Executor form.

- The GApplication now cleans up files properly after completion.

- A new constructor in the GApplication class defines if it can be
re-used. By default a GApplication is only single use.

- Added a new method to ThreadCollection to enable removing threads
from the application. This API feature is under review, and is not
guaranteed to remain unchanged in the stable v.1.0.

- The Alchemi console interface is improved with a lot of new features
including job-submission and graphical views for grid-applications and
executor statistics.

--------------
BUG-FIXES:
--------------

- On Non-dedicated executor disconnect finished threads were reset. In
v.1.0 threads are reset only if they are not already finished/dead.

- Due to an error in the way the number of completed threads are
counted and maintained, the Application_Finish event used to be called
before all threads were actually completed. This lead to various
problems including loss of some threads. In v.1.0, the thread count is
maintained in the database and the correct count is always maintained.
Hence the Application_Finish would be called at the right time.

- The Executor used to carry the context of all previously loaded
AppDomains (one for each grid-application) and this caused
memory/performance issues. The Executor now recieves the new "CleanUp"
event from the GApplication, and unloads AppDomains so that the
overhead is avoided as soon as an application finishes.

- A thread that is relinquished by an Executor and it has already been
aborted, the Manager used to reschedule it. This issue has been fixed
in v.1.0. and the Manager verifies threads and re-schedules only those
which are not already aborted.

- When the same GApplication is used multiple times containing a large
number of grid threads, synchronization problems appeared due to
different threads accessing/modifying the list of grid-threads. This is
fixed in v.1.0 as the code-block that accesses/modifies the
thread-collection is now synchronized. Furthermore, a GApplication is
now clearly defined as either single-use (default) or multi-use. Only
multi-use GApplications can be used more than once, and threads can be
added to it after the first set of threads are completed.

- The Manager/Executor status-area which shows the recently logged
messages is limited in length. Due to this, after a certain number of
messages, the text-area didnot show any new information. This is fixed
now, with the text-area always showing only the last 10 lines of logged
messages. Older messages can be found in the log files:
(alchemi-manager.log, alchemi-executor.log).

- The Alchemi Console used to stop abruptly on unhandled errors. This
has been fixed to have a catch-all-errors handler which provides the
default error-handling mechanism and graceful exit from unexpected
situations.


------------------
Breaking Changes:
------------------
- A new namespace Alchemi.Core.Owner has been introduced and the
following classes have been re-arranged to be part of this namespace:
- ApplicationState
- EmbeddedFileDependency
- FileDependency
- FileDepenedencyCollection
- GApplication
- GConnection
- GConnectionDialog
- GConnectionDialogForm
- GJob
- GThread
- ModuleDependency
- ThreadCollection
- ThreadIdentifier
- ThreadState

.