EAI Blog

I am a little late with this entry, but am back dating it to help keep track of which entries belong to which weeks.

This was quite the productive past seven days. Our group project has really taken off. We have completed the SAP side (both in a messy "test" form, and in a cleaned up final form), and our website is almost ready to roll!

Aside from the project, I am finishing out the rpML transformation of my paper. This has been a really busy week to say the least with me being the last one out of Lubar twice this past week. Aside from everything going on in 746, two projects are coming to fruition.

These last few weeks are going to be hectic, but the finish line is in site.

So, Team II met again this weekend to get a good start on our project. I think we have a good portion of the front end completed as well as a good portion of the back end completed in SAP. I am not expecting too much time to be required next weekend to complete this task, so that is good as it will leave time for me to convert my paper to the xml format. I noticed that while working in SAP, I was remembering quite a bit from the labs, so I am glad I am retaining the information we are covering.

It is hard to believe the semester is almost over and that only a few weeks are left. I am going to keep with it and finish strong... I was a little worried at the beginning of the semester about what to expect from grad school, but I have to say it has been a good experience and I look forward to upcoming classes.

So our internet went out last night, so I have been relegated to write this over my lunch break at work. Good times, huh.

So yeah, Group II (of the Grad Groups) met again over the weekend and have our next deliverable already completed. I have agreed to start the leg work for the .net side of our online store. Although I am relatively unfamiliar with this (never having done anything like this before Lab1) I feel confident I will be able to figure it out and get everything linked to the appropriate web services. In general, I enjoy working with this group and think we will accomplish some great things.

For today, we also had to turn in our questions and comments on the BPM paper. I thought it was an interesting topic in its relation to the newer regulatory compliance mandates set out by Sarbanes-Oxley and the like.

So, yeah, that is about it for now.  Back to work, then studying.

Once again, I met up with my group to go over our project for class. We turned in a deliverable already and are hoping to get some good feedback before the due date.

Beyond that, I have finished my term paper on grid computing. I will link it here when I get it on the web. Because I can, I will display the intro to it below.

2.       Introduction

In the early 90’s the term ‘Computational Grid’, a type of distributed computing, was popularized by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselmans in their paper "The Grid: Blueprint for a new computing infrastructure".  The term was used as a metaphor comparing distributed computing to the electric power grid of the early 1900’s ¹. Distributed Computing, and in some cases grid computing, utilizes a computer network to interface a group or cluster of computers allowing them to work together to accomplish a set of computationally intensive instructions. A cluster of computers working in a grid are able to accomplish a similar workload to that of a super computer, but without the expense. This technology was popularized in the late 90’s by distributed.net and again in 1999 by SETI@home to harness the power of networked PCs worldwide.  Since its popularization, distributed computing has become so powerful its systems can be so powerful they rival the fastest supercomputers and access to these systems can be obtained for a comparatively small investment. Currently a few of the areas utilizing virtual supercomputers for data analysis are molecular modeling, brain activity analysis, and high energy physics. 

So yeah, I am done for the weekend. Have a good one everyone.

I met with Kandy and Bretton this past Saturday to discuss the online group project. We went over the various parts that were going to be needed for next week's deliverable and made great headway on the first part of our project. We have a few questions that could use some clarifying, but for the most part I think it will be smooth sailing. I look forward to working with my teammates on the completion of this project.

I threw out my back a couple of days ago and it still hurts to sit, let alone stand. As such, I have been putting off doing part b of lab 3. I have been having some issues with it at home, so I plan to try it at school tomorrow in one of the campus labs. Other than that chapter 16 was a good read on webservices and the various security methods used to protect the information. I guess for now, I am heading to bed.

I am taking the week off as it is spring break. I will be back by Sunday with a new entry though.