[Condor-users] More on using Dropbox <www.getdropbox.com> to interface with Condor

[Ian Cottam <ian.cottam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've built a little demo / trial system of how this <see subject line> 
could work. Note that the "submitting laptop" is not running Condor and 
could be anywhere in the world.

This morning I did a screen capture video of my demo of Condor with 
Dropbox. It is a bit boring, but that is because simplicity looks
boring! It has no sound, but here is an explanation of what you see:

1. A folder called Submit containing a Condor job requesting 100 Linux
nodes (well... just 1 for this test :-) ) is dragged to the folder
Condor-at-MIB. This is synced by Dropbox to a node that runs Condor (at
MIB!) and a script looking for jobs coming in.
2. You see the folder being renamed by adding the date-time to its name.
3. The start of a log file is created by Condor. Ditto the output in
out.txt.
4. Dropbox notifies us that these files have been locally updated.
If you are quick you will see out.txt going from zero to 4KB. That is,
Condor has run the job and the output is copied back to us.
5. I check the result files are as expected.
6. I drag the folder, which now has the results, back out of the Dropbox
share to the desktop.

It is a Quicktime movie (so Windows users will likely need Quicktime to 
watch it) and is a little big, sorry.

I would prefer if interested parties email me for a link to it, rather 
than just post it here (in case too many people try to download at once).

Comments most welcome.
-Ian
--
Ian Cottam
Information Systems Manager
Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre &
School of Materials &
School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science (Room C24)
The John Garside Building (Room G.002)
The University of Manchester
e: ian.cottam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
t: 0161 306 5198
m: 07856 849831
http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Ian.Cottam
[Giving a talk in MIB? Upload it: http://ic.mib.man.ac.uk/mibtheatre.php]