crossGrid
Through the temporary connection and the (direct or indirect) interaction of Across Servers, crossGrid enables the flexible distribution of projects and tasks beyond the borders of one's own organization (i.e., beyond one's own Across installation) – regardless of whether the collaboration involves a service provider and customer, a parent company and foreign subsidiaries, or other partnerships.
The projects and tasks to be processed are transferred in the form of packages.
In computer science, a grid refers to methods that combine the computing power of several machines in such a way that, in addition to the actual exchange of data, the load is evenly distributed among these machines.
The basic configuration of crossGrid takes place in the corresponding section in the system settings. There you can define with which Master and/or Trusted Servers your Across Server should work.
crossGrid is managed in the crossGrid module, which can be accessed via Projects > crossGrid in the module bar to the left of the screen.
Master Server vs. Trusted Server
Your Across Server can take on two functions within crossGrid: On the one hand, packages can be delegated from your Across Server to another Across Server. In this case, your Across Server takes on the role of the Master Server. The Across Server to which the packages are delegated by your Across Server is the so-called Trusted Server. If, however, another Across Server delegates packages to your Across Server, the situation is reversed: Your Across Server now becomes the Trusted Server and the Across Server that delegated the packages is now the Master Server.
crossGrid online vs. crossGrid classic
You can select whether the Master Server and the Trusted Server are to exchange the data required for processing the delegated tasks via direct contact from one server to the other (crossGrid online) or via GWU (Grid Working Unit) and GRU (Grid Response Unit) files. For this, a GWU file first needs to be created on the Master Server and be made available to the Trusted Server, e.g. on a suitable storage medium, by e-mail, or via FTP download and be imported. After the tasks have been processed, a GRU file is created on the Trusted Server, made available to the Master Server, and imported there.
Please note that the crossTank and crossTerm entries that were transferred from the Master Server to the Trusted Server for processing delegated tasks or that were created while processing the delegated tasks will by default be deleted after the tasks are complete, transferred to the Master Server and will therefore no longer be available on the Trusted Server.
Server context
The server context designates the data pool of a Master Server or Trusted Server. The server context ensures that data sets from two different Master Servers are not mixed on the Trusted Server side but always remain separated.
The connection between the Across Servers connected with crossGrid is initiated by the client of the Trusted Server, which establishes the connection to the Master Server (also in terms of the network technology). The connection is secured by Server Certificate Package files (SCP files). These files must be exchanged outside Across (e.g. by e-mail) and be imported to Across via Tools > System Settings > General > crossGrid before the connection between the servers is established.
SCP files are created in crossAdmin. Information on this subject is available in the administrator help section of the Across Language Server in the Online Help Portal.
At a glance, the column Finish date shows which crossGrid packages are finished and which ones are still being processed. The displayed date represents the date of the last delivery of a finished crossGrid package. No date is displayed as long as not all tasks of the package are finished.
More information on the status of a package is available on the Status tab of the Package Properties window. Select a package and click Properties in order to open the window.
- The following information is available:
- Creation date: Shows the creation date of the crossGrid package.
- Start date: Shows the date on which the first task of the project started. This task may not necessarily be included in the crossGrid package. Therefore, the start date may differ from the creation date of the crossGrid package and possibly predate the creation date.
- Due date: Displays the due date of the tasks contained in the crossGrid package.
Please note that you need to have the appropriate rights in order to be able to access the crossGrid module. By default, the supervisor and project manager are designated for this type of task.
Partitions of a document cannot be distributed to different Trusted Servers. If you assign a partition to a Trusted Server, all other partitions will automatically be assigned to the same Trusted Server.
A Trusted Server may partition incoming tasks if the Master Server has permitted this in the associated project settings templates.