Workunits

A workunit describes a computation to be performed. The attributes of a workunit include:

name

Unique across all workunits in the project.

application

Which application performs the computation. A workunit is associated with an application, not with a particular version or range of versions. If the format of your input data changes in a way that is incompatible with older versions, you must create a new application. This can often be avoided by using XML data format.

input files

A list of its input files: their names, and the names by which the application refers to them.

resource estimates

The estimated resource requirements of the work unit (computation, memory, disk space).

scheduling parameters

A set of parameters determining the redundancy and error policies for this work unit.

The create_work utility program provides a simplified interface for creating workunits.