PVM emulation in the harness metacomputing system: A plug-in based approach

Abstract. Metacomputing frameworks have received renewed attention of late, fueled both by advances in hardware and networking, and by novel concepts such as computational grids. Harness is an experimental metacomputing system based upon the principle of dynamic reconfigurability not only in terms of the computers and networks that comprise the virtual machine, but also in the capabilities of the VM itself. These characteristics may be modified under user control via a "plug-in " mechanism that is the central feature of the system. In this paper we describe our preliminary experience in the design of PVM emulation by means of a set of plug-in.