News
Adobe turns to GridIron for grid tools
- By Lana Gates
- February 3, 2004
Ottawa-based GridIron Software (http://www.gridironsoftware.com) has
signed an agreement that calls for its XLR8 tools for building Grid software to
be bundled with Adobe Systems Inc.'s After Effects Professional video
toolset.
Bundling GridIron's tool in the After Effects professional box will make grid
technology available as an off-the-shelf product, said Gord Watts, GridIron's
vice president of marketing. ''This is an example of grid computing where you
don't require a large infrastructure and deep IT experience. It's plug and play
that has mainstream ability.''
As digital content creation has migrated into mainstream development circles,
thanks in large part to the proliferation of the digital camera, there is an
increased need to provide computational capability for it. Grid computing offers
this vertical market the possibility of speed improvements by distributing
processing tasks among multiple computers, Watts contended.
Adobe After Effects Professional, officials said, offers tools that can
produce innovative motion graphics and effects for film, video, DVD and the Web.
Adobe will use GridIron's software to increase the speed of preview and
rendering capabilities by dividing and distributing the work from a single
computer to several networked computers, officials said.
GridIron XLR8 includes two parts: a software development kit of documentation
with a set of APIs, and an executable that provides processing capability, Watts
said. A software developer can use the set of APIs to wrap the components of
their source code. Once the application has been modified with the API set, the
executable can be installed on each machine for processing and the application
is then ready, Watts explained.
XLR8 relies on a peer-to-peer grid computing environment. ''The executable is
part of our black magic,'' Watts said. ''All these machines discover each other
and create a grid automatically. They distribute the work among themselves.''
Along with GridIron's agreement with Adobe Systems, the company has just
announced Version 2 of XLR8, which is said to include a powerful new security
model and a unique technology for data handling.
About the Author
Lana Gates is a freelance writer based in Mesa, Arizona. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].