Java Parallel Processing
Framework

Summary of changes:

• A powerful new feature allows users to specify on which nodes a set of tasks can be executed, by applying an execution policy against the nodes. Read more....
• JPPF can now use alternate serialization schemes, allowing the use of non-serializable classes and 3rd-party libraries. Read more....
• An new integration sample demonstrates how to integrate the JPPF J2SE client into a Servlet/JSP container such as Apache Tomcat 5.5 or 6.0.
• Clear initialization messages were added to the JPPF server and node components.
• A major upgrade of the communication framework brings increased performance and a smaller memory footprint.

Summary of changes:

• A new networking tool, the TCP port multiplexer, was implemented to enable JPPF to work in firewalled environments.
It enables the routing of all JPPF network traffic through a single port, without any modification to the existing applications.
More details can be found on the JPPF And Networking wiki page
• A new node management feature was added, that enables updating a node's execution thread pool dynamically.
• A new node monitoring feature was added, allowing the collection of the node's system and java environments.
• Several bugs were fixed that caused errors to be raised when management was disabled in a server or a node.

Summary of changes:

New APIs were added to the J2EE connector to receive submission status events.

The capability to disable monitoring and manamgement features in nodes and servers was added.

Several minor bugs were fixed.

Some refactoring of the server APIs was performed, for a greater reusability and modularity.

Summary of changes:
A new, very efficient load balancing algorithm was added.
The administration console was upgraded accordingly.
The server performance was enhanced.
A web search engine application was added to the samples pack.
Many minor bugs were fixed.

Summary of changes:

Performance enhancements were implemented in the server task dispatcher.

A bug was fixed in the JPPF resource adapter, that caused class loading issues when deployed in OC4J and Sun AS.

A minor display issue was fixed in the fractals explorer.

Improvements were made to the image color scheme in the fractals explorer.

Summary of changes:

Tasks can now be canceled and restarted remotely, as well as configured to timeout a a given date of after a given elapsed time.

The Administration console was upgraded to handle the new task management features.

A major leap in execution performance has been implemented.

The JPPF JCA resource adapter now implements asynchonous tasks submission, removing any risk of J2EE transaction timeout.

New: the JPPF Samples Pack brings a set of exciting applications of JPPF to real-life problems.

In this version: a Mandelbrot fractals explorer and protein sequence alignment

Summary of changes:

JPPF is now integrated with JMX, and uses it to provide extended administration and monitoring services to users and developers.

Monitoring capabilities have now been extended to the nodes as well as to the executed tasks, enabling a fine-grained monitoring of the code that is executed.

The administration console now provides an extended view of the JPPF network.

Critical issues were fixed that would cause a node to crash in specific conditions.

Summary of changes:

JPPF is now licensed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0. Starting from JPPF 1.0 beta1, all releases will be licensed under these terms. Prior versions will remain under the terms of the LGPL.

For the first time, JPPF integrates seamlessly with J2EE. The JPPF Resource Adapter provides J2EE application servers with an access to native grid services.

Numerous bug fixes, especially with regards to the distributed class loading mechanism.

Summary of changes:

• The demos and samples can now be run from a user interface, the demonstrations console.
• The nodes can now override the performance settings on the server side.
• Several critical bugs were fixed in the server.
• Parts of the code were refactored for enhanced clarity and extensibility.

Summary of changes:

• A server connection pooling capability was added to the client, resulting in increased throughput and performance.
• A new demonstration and documentation section were added to illustrate that capability.
• Multiple bugs were fixed in the administration console, resulting in a greater usability of its charting features.
• A new, lightweight distribution of the source code was added to the JPPF release.

Summary of changes:

• The communications and execution performance was increased by 10%.
• Numerous bugs were fixed in the server, increasing its stability and scalability.
• A bug was fixed in the distributed class loader, that would cause the client to crash.
• The graphical administration console was upgraded to use Substance L&F v3.1 and JFreeChart v1.0.3

Summary of changes:

• New load-balancing and failover capabilities were added to the client, which can now connect to multiple servers.
• The administration console now monitors multiple servers at once.
• The classloading mechanism was improved to facilitate EJB invocations from a task.
• The build scripts can now generate single jar files for nodes and servers deployment.
• A bug was fixed that prevented the screensaver node from executing tasks.

Summary of changes:

• Fixed an issue in the adaptive scheduling algorithm, which caused the tasks to be executed by only one node at a time.
• Improved the performance of the scheduling algorithm, resulting in a smaller execution overhead.
• Fixed minor localization issues in the administration tool.

Summary of changes:

• JPPF now supports multiple servers in a peer-to-peer topology, enabling it to scale to millions of nodes.
• Nodes can now be run as Windows services.
• Many performance enhancements were made, making JPPF yet faster and easier to use.
• Many bug fixes were performed, resulting in greater robustness and reliability.

Summary of changes:

• A bug was fixed where a node would go into an infinite loop if its security policy file was not present.
• A new node data provider was added, to allow the nodes to access files of arbitrary size, through an HTTP or FTP URL.
• The preferences in the administration tool are now persisted.
• Many enhancements where brought to the UI builder.

Summary of changes:

• The capability to change the L&F skin/theme is now available from the top frame's system menu.
• A feature was added to the UI, giving an overview of all the tabs in a tabbed pane.
• Scripting capabilities were added to the UI building framework. Rich client interfaces can now be built almost without writing a single line of Java.
• The implementation of a (experimental) graphical UI builder was started, to help building UIs from XML docs, including the capability to load and preview pages, alongside their XML representation.

Summary of changes:

• Added support for internationalization of the administration and monitoring UI.
• Translations are currently available in English, Portugese and French.
• The Windows screensaver now comes with its own installer, based on the NSIS installer.
• Various bug fixes and code refactoring.

Summary of changes:

• The XML-based UI builder was enhanced to provide new components and additional customizable properties.
• Using these improvements, the charts configuration panel was migrated to an XML-based generation.
• The client API was enhanced to additionally enable the instantiation of a client from external parameters, rather than solely rely on a static configuration file.
• The tasks bundle size calculation has been switched to a finer level of granualrity. Now each node performs its own calculation, providing a subtantial global performance boost to the server. This feature provides JPPF with an actual grid scheduling strategy.

Summary of changes:

• We fixed a major bug where the server would throw a ClassCastException.
• Nodes now check their up-to-date status as soon as they connect to the server, rather than after executing the first task bundle.
• The persistence of the preferences in the admin tool was dramatically sped-up.
• The JPPF client now provides a non-blocking way of submitting tasks, relying on a notification mechanism to obtain the results asynchronously.
• A new sample demo was added to illustrate this new functionality.
• The administration tool was refactored so that the screens, panels and most visual components are build from XML descriptors.
• This enables developers to easily build their own admin tool, by adding and/or removing components to it, as well as by easily changing the layout and arrangement of components.
• A new panel was added in the administration tool, to fine-tune the behaviour of the bundle size auto-tuning mechanism in the server.
• The look and feel of the screensaver settings dialog was improved using a new color theme and enhanced layout.

Summary of changes:

The node security policy file is now part of the driver distribution, in order to have the nodes upload it from the driver. This will greatly facilitate the deployment of JPPF updates.
The nodes auto-update is now performed without disconnecting them from the server, removing the performance hit that occurred in previous versions.
A number of bugs were fixed in the screensaver, making it much more stable.

Summary of changes:

The size of the tasks bundles can now be calculated dynamically, using an algorithm based on Monte Carlo.
The security policy for the nodes can now be uploaded from the server, making its deployment effortless.
We enhanced the layout of the screensaver-based nodes and added an animation to it (flying JPPF logos).

Summary of changes:

Added multithreading capability to the nodes, so they can execute multiple tasks concurrently.
Fixed various network IO-related issues that made the server unstable.
Fixed exception handling in the nodes. Exceptions are now reported back with the tasks.
Added a new packaging of a node as a screensaver (experimental - Windows only). This is an unstable version, please report any bug or issue.

Summary of changes:

Fixed a bug where the server would not properly reset its state when a node was disconnected, leading the server to believe the node had not completed its task, wich was then submitted back to the execution queue.
This was causing in turn the server to be stuck when trying to notify a client, which was no longer there, of the task completion

Summary of changes:

A new "hot update" feature was added to the nodes, so they are automatically updated when a newer version of JPPF is installed.

Fixed a bug where the server would not detect immediately when a node was disconnected.

Summary of changes:

JPPF has switched to the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). This follows a feedback from some of our users, who told us that GPL was too constraining, especially in a corporate context. From this version forward, JPPF will now be licensed under the LGPL. Prior versions will remain under the GPL.

The core communication framework has been refactored so as to use non-blocking I/O, bringing more robustness, scalability, and a performance gain of 10-15%.

Fixed a bug in the admin tool, where the task bundle size was not refreshed properly from the server.

Fixed a bug where, when a node was disconnected or crashed, its tasks were resubmitted at the end of the queue, rather than the start, which caused an important performance hit.

The project has been splitted into several module, making it easier to manage the code and work as a team.

Summary of changes:

Please join us in welcoming dcreado, your ideas and talent are greatly needed!
There could be no better gift for JPPF's first birthday.

Achieved a major performance enhancement by bundling atomic tasks together, rather then sending them together.
The code in the nodes a the core server has been refactored accordingly, to allow for further improvement.
Added capability in the administration tool to manually optimize the bundle size, allowing for a nice performance tuning.

Summary of changes:

Implemented a password protection mechanism in the administration tool. An admin password is now required to send an administration request to the server. The default password is 'admin' and can be changed from the tool as well.

Documented an overview of JPPF as a set of slides presentation. This will serve as the basis for a more complete user guide, to come soon.

Summary of changes:

Fixed bug #1446272: Linux: annoying preferences warning messages.
Fixed bug #1447225: Charts not restored in the order in which they were defined.

We also worked on making the definition of new charts easier and more comfortable.

Summary of changes:

Fixed bug #1446269: JPPF Driver will not start on Linux.
Our apologies for all Linux users. We won't let you down!
 

Summary of changes:

• We added a new demo, in response to a comment about the performance of the framework. This demo shows a more efficient use of JPPF. This is an implementation of feature request #1442051: Provide more examples and demos in the distribution. There is also more information that can be found in bug #1441052: Remote nodes very slow
• Fixed a few bugs in the monitoring and admin tool, tied to charts configuration
• Updated the readme page to make it clearer and easier to get started with JPPF

Summary of changes:

• We added the capability for the user to define and customize the charts displayed in the graphical client.
  The user can define the type of chart, which data items to display in the charts, and a number of other parameters, like the title, unit the data is in, etc.
  All charts are now in a separate tabbed pane, in which individual tabs are user defined.
  The charts are added, configured or removed on the fly, and any change is immediately persisted through the Java preferences mechanism.
  This functionality is an implementation of feature request #1437652: Configurable charts in the monitoring tool.
• We also added many new types of charts tp pick from: pie, ring, diffference, area charts, etc.
  
• Fixed bug #1441052: Remote nodes very slow
• Fixed bug #1440671: JPPF driver Ant script does not work
• Fixed bug #1436667: Inconsistent numbers displayed in the monitoring UI

Summary of changes:

Fixed bug #1436618: Server subprocess hanging when server is killed manually

Summary of changes:

• Added new major feature: capability to stop and restart the server remotely
• Refactored the server to enable the capability
• Added client APIs to stop and restart the server remotely.
• Added a new panel in the graphical client to perform a server stop and restart through the UI.
• fixed bug #1434636 Multiple client requests not synchronized

Summary of changes:

• fixed bug #1433248
• changed the bar charts to a 3D look
• added the missing legend to the plot charts

Summary of changes:

• added bar charts for snapshot visualization of the server state
• added plot charts for visualizing the evolution of the server over time

Summary of changes:

• new monitoring user interface
• based on the Substance (https://substance.dev.java.net) Look & Feel to enable skinable themes
• added a new screenshots section to the web site, to give an overview of the look and capabilities

Summary of changes:

• added new security feature, based on the Java security mechanism
• security can be disabled, and permissions customized, through a security policy file
• minor bug fixes
• updated the faq

Summary of changes:

• implemented an automatic client recovery feature. Now, when the server crashes, the client automatically attempts to reconnect, for a configured amount of time. If the the server is restarted in the meantime, the client resubmits the work that was interrupted.
• refactoring of the recovery mechanism, so that it is reused throughout the framework (client, nodes and network class loader)
• minor bug fixes
• Javadoc improvements

Summary of changes:

• implemented an automatic node recovery feature. Now, when the server crashes, nodes autamatically attempt to reconnect, for a configured amount of time. An additional benefit to this, is that the nodes can be started before the server. Automatic recovery also applies to the dynamic class loading mechanism.
• minor bug fixes
• Javadoc improvements

Summary of changes:

• changed the communication model to something similar to SETI@Home, to upgrade scalability to a new level.
• added dynamic class loading capabilities, so that no deployment is required for the client applications.
• dramatically simplified the configuration overhead - the framework can now be up and running on a grid in minutes.
• extensively refactored the framework code, decreasing the code size and number of classes by over 50%.
• added new binary distributions, for easy deployment of the server and nodes.
• dropped the UI part of the framework, due to the new architecture that renders it useless.
• the project web has been entirely revamped, to support the new face of JPPF.

Summary of changes:

• improved README.html, to make it clearer how to start with JPPF, based on the feedback I got from these users who dared JPPF.
• fixed an issue with the demo start script, which caused the UI to show up after a long delay.
• fixed issues with the handling of exceptions within the client applications code. The nodes will not die anymore because of client exceptions. This greatly improves the framework's robustness.
• added a runtime distribution component, to make it easier to deploy JPPF on a distributed network.