Remote launching C++ apps

Question

My problem is simple, I have 1 computer conected to many powerfull servers. I want to execute the app locally but run the process (heavy load) in the remote servers.

The app+settings vary a lot, and I want that this exactly version of the app+settings folder to be used by the remote instances.

My approach so far:

• Launch the app locally
• Use PSEXEC to remote launch the same executable as it is running in local -> in the servers (with a random port number passed by argument)
• Contect to them via sockets
• Send commands to execute remotely and get the results

My problem relies in the config files, wich are many(50+) and some of them +4MB. This config files are TXT files in a config folder.

What is the proper way to do it? Is it possible to use PSEXEC to copy remotely a whole folder? Can I do any good trick on the sockets to directly pass a copy of the local files to remote?

I would like all the process to be semi-transparent. Since many people will use it with different versions and settings at the same time. So manually copying the files to 20+servers is NOT an option.

Thank you!

Answer 1

You might want to look at HTCondor (http://research.cs.wisc.edu/htcondor/) which could perhaps manage all of this for you.

Answer 2

Put the program/script that you want to execute by all machines on one common location on local network (put your configs there too). On all servers create a batch file say 'runme.bat' that will execute your program directly from network location.

This way you can use psexec to run runme.bat essentially executing your program/script on any server you want.

Since often - there are issues using psexec - you may invoke your scripts from Task Scheduler etc.

I do that for 500+ servers and it works. If working for me it will work for you.