[R] Parallel Processing Interface for lapply()

[John Maindonald]

In co-operation with Markus Hegland and myself, Zhongwen Ding
has written a package, based partly on Markus Hegland's code,
that provides a parallel processing interface to a remote
multi-processsor system.  Pyro (Python Remote Objects) and R
must both be installed, both on the client machine and on the remote
server.  The system uses rsync, with an ssh protocol, to handle
file transfer.

Once setup is complete on the client and server side, the R
qlapply package provides the following functions:
(1) autoStart() to initiate communication with the server
(2) qlapply(), which is a version of lapply() that is adapted
for parallel processing
(3) autoKill(), to terminate the server processes.

An experimental version can be downloaded from
    http://datamining.anu.edu.au/software/qlapply

Please forward comments to one of the following:
Zhongwen Din:  zhongwen at faceng.anu.edu.au
Markus Hegland: markus.hegland at anu.edu.au
or to myself.

Ideas on simpler ways of handling the establishing of
communication with the server will be particularly
welcome.

John Maindonald             email: john.maindonald at anu.edu.au
phone : +61 2 (6125)3473    fax  : +61 2(6125)5549
Centre for Bioinformation Science, Room 1194,
John Dedman Mathematical Sciences Building (Building 27)
Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200.