XGE Agents are client components responsible both for initiating distributed jobs as well as for participating in distributed jobs initiated by other Agents as remote computing resources.
At its most basic level of functionality, an Agent acts as a "Helper", executing computing tasks from distributed jobs initiated by other Agents. XGE (Xoreax Grid Engine) Virtualization technology ensures a task will be executed exactly as if it were being executed on the computer that initiated the job - regardless of the remote Agent's file system, installation base and environment. Output files are similarly created on the initiating computer's file system.
Additional processors can be utilized to improve processing power, with each CPU carrying out a different task simultaneously.
Agents are also able to initiate distributed jobs, comprising of tasks (a command line process, such as the compilation of a C++ source file or processing of an input data file). Throughout the distributed job execution, the Coordinator assigns remote ("Helper") Agents to the executing job. The initiating Agent communicates with these Agents, managing task assignment. Relevant input files are transferred upon demand to remote Agents executing the different tasks, while output is transferred from the remote Agents to the local file system.
