The SMD database provides access
to software that
requires extended execution time and/or is computationally
intensive. These programs include reading MAGE array design files,
microarray data retrieval and
several others. What often happens with these long running
processes is that a web connection is opened to initiate the process.
The process begins execution still under the control of the (Apache)
web server. This has the effect of needlessly tying up a web
connection. Additionally, after several minutes with little or no output
to the browser the web server may terminate the process. Further, if there are
many users running computationally intensive applications simultaneously,
there may be negative effects on overall system performance.
The job queue and job manager were
invented to alleviate these difficulties.
The job manager may run n jobs at a time. The SMD staff monitors system
performance and may adjust this parameter depending on system load and
types of computation currently active.
