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Published April 2005 | public
Journal Article

Peach: A Simple Perl-Based System for Distributed Computation and Its Application to Cryo-EM Data Processing

Abstract

A simple distributed processing system named "Peach" was developed to meet the rising computational demands of modern structural biology (and other) laboratories without additional expense by using existing hardware resources more efficiently. A central server distributes jobs to idle workstations in such a way that each computer is used maximally, but without disturbing intermittent interactive users. As compared to other distributed systems, Peach is simple, easy to install, easy to administer, easy to use, scalable, and robust. While it was designed to queue and distribute large numbers of small tasks to participating computers, it can also be used to send single jobs automatically to the fastest currently available computer and/or survey the activity of an entire laboratory's computers. Tests of robustness and scalability are reported, as are three specific electron cryomicroscopy applications where Peach enabled projects that would not otherwise have been feasible without an expensive, dedicated cluster.

Additional Information

© 2005 Elsevier. Received 30 November 2004; revised 12 January 2005; accepted 14 January 2005. Published: April 11, 2005. Available online 13 April 2005. We thank C. Iancu for her willingness to test and use Peach during development stages; P. Ober for the early development of ideas for distributed processing; and W. Tivol, S. Tivol, and D. Morris for reviewing the manuscript. This work was supported in part by NIH Grant PO1 GM66521 to G.J.J., DOE grant DE-FG02-04ER63785 to G.J.J., the Beckman Institute at Caltech, and gifts from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the Agouron Institute, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to Caltech.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023