I want...

[Indigo]

A distributed computing software platform that will let me:

Install a console / server on a dedicated system in my house which will then allow me to:

* Dynamically Allocate Work Units to idle systems in the house
* Monitor those systems based on metrics, i.e. CPU temp, utilization, Memory Usage, System Uptime
* Perform administrative tasks - reboot a system that is having problems running a WU, or restart processes remotely

and I want to do it without resorting to Remote Desktop. Am I dreaming? Or is any of this a reality?

I'd love to get back into DC, and help out with some projects, but I have a concern. A few actually.

I live in an older home. As my friends can attest to (Plonk420 on this very BB is one of my RL buddies) too many computers on one circuit in this house and it blows something in a completely different room. Heat is a major concern because the systems that have the most horsepower are in my west-facing bedroom with very large windows and an underpowered AC unit. I can barely afford to keep the power on, so buying a larger AC unit is out of the question (that, and the power for the AC comes from a 25' 10 guage extension cord plugged into the other side of the house.

I'm not too worried about component wear, I'm comfident the parts I picked for my systems are up to the task, I just worry about heat and my electricity bill. Having the ability to centrally maintain this would be a boon, and would be more likely to let me do this.

For the record, I have at my disposal, which goes largely unused:

Phenom II X4 940 BE
Athlon 64 X2 6000+
Athlon 64 X2 5400+
Athlon 64 X2 BE-2300
Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Athlon 64 X2 4000+
Phenom 9950 BE
Athlon 800
Duron 1300
Athlon XP 3200+
Pentium 4 3.0 w/ HT
Core 2 Duo T9300 (laptop)
Turion 64 ML-37 (Laptop)

and a few others I can't think of.

[NeoGen]

By your specs I'm thinking the closest thing should be a linux farm there, altough I'm not experienced with linux I think you can do all the administrative tasks remotely in command line. And most likely with specific applications for linux you'll be able to do the remote monitoring of memory, cpu temp, etc, as you said.

For the crunching part I'd say boinc, there used to be an app for remotely managing multiple boinc hosts, BoincView, but I think it is gone nowadays. And I don't really know if BoincView was for linux, but anyways, there should be some other app under the same guidelines nowadays. With it I think you'll be able to manage the crunchers remotely.

This is the general, and very rough idea I have. But I'm sure someone with more experience can tell you more in detail how these things work. :)