rsh/distributed computing questions

[Richard Weier]

I wish to break a big job into several pieces and run them on different machines.  I have been able to write a program which writes to stdout and another program which reads standard in.  rsh talker | listener  works just fine.  So far I know that I can use /etc/hosts.equiv to get potential machines.  What are other people's experiences with this?

1) The rsh method seems easy enough.  Is there a better way to handle communications?
2) Is there better way to determine which hosts are available?
3) Is there an easy way to determine if an available host is already busy?

I will summarize if there is sufficient interest.

Thanks,
Richard Weier
weier at twolf.ce.yale.edu