Parameter sweeping is a widely used algorithmic technique in computational
science. It is specially suited for high-throughput computing since the jobs
evaluating the parameter space are loosely coupled or independent.
A tool that integrates the modeling of a parameter study with the control of
jobs in a distributed architecture is presented. The main task is to facilitate
the creation and deletion of job templates, which are the elements describing
the jobs to be run. Extra functionality relies upon the GridWay Metascheduler,
acting as the middleware layer for job submission and control. It supports
interesting features like multi-dimensional sweeping space, wildcarding of
parameters, functional evaluation of ranges, value-skipping and job template
automatic indexation.
The use of this tool increases the reliability of the parameter sweep study
thanks to the systematic bookkeping of job templates and respective job
statuses. Furthermore, it simplifies the porting of the target application to
the grid reducing the required amount of time and effort.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure
