The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) applications that are typically hosted by WebSphere Application Server perform short, lightweight, transactional units of work. In most cases, an individual request can be satisfied with a few seconds of CPU time and relatively little memory. Many applications, however, need to perform computational and resource-intensive work that does not fit this transactional paradigm. These applications need Compute Grid.
There are clearly marked sections of the Compute Grid Infocenter that apply to those Compute Grid customers who also have purchased the WebSphere Virtual Enterprise package.
The Compute Grid function in WebSphere Extended Deployment extends WebSphere Application Server to accommodate applications that need to perform grid work alongside transactional applications, as shown in the following graphic. Grid work might take hours or even days to complete and consume large amounts of memory or processing power while it runs.
WebSphere Extended Deployment Compute Grid includes a Web-based application for managing jobs, called The job management console. Through this console, users can submit jobs, monitor job execution, perform operational actions against jobs, view job logs, manage the job repository and manage job schedules.
WebSphere Extended Deployment uses jobs to express units of grid work. A job describes the work, which application is needed to perform the work, and can include additional information to help WebSphere Application Server handle the work effectively and efficiently. Jobs are specified in an XML dialect called xJCL and can be submitted programmatically or through a command-line interface. As part of a job submission, the job is persisted in an external database and given to the job scheduler component of WebSphere Extended Deployment. The job scheduler pairs waiting jobs with available capacity in the cell and distributes the jobs to grid endpoints to run.
As with the dynamic operations function, the Compute Grid has autonomic management functions to dynamically adapt your environment to changing workload.