The Grid Computing Toolbox unlocks additional routines in the Grid package for distributed parallel computing with Maple.  The Grid package is a Maple Library that is part of the standard Maple distribution.  
This package contains one submodule:

The Grid library contains procedures for distributing computations across an arbitrary number of machines and/or CPUs on the same machine. Each machine or CPU is called a "node" in the grid.

Grid offers MPI-like commands for message passing. In addition, several high-level parallel commands are also available.

There are 3 modes to the Grid package:
"local" - default mode included with Maple for running parallel multiprocess computations on a single machine
"mpi" - mode for interacting with the local message passing interface (MPI) protocol and scheduler for batch processing
"hpc" - mode for distributed computing on a heterogeneous network

In "hpc" mode, each node in the grid must run a grid server process. This server must be started explicitly on each node.  By default, the servers will discover each other automatically and the grid will be assembled without further action. Auto-discovery can be turned off for use in a controlled environment, for example a PBS setup.

For "mpi" mode, an implementation of the MPI library specification for message passing is required. For more information about such libraries, see http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/projects/mpi/.  For Windows platforms, the current MPI implementation in the Grid Computing Toolbox supports the Microsoft® high-performance computing (HPC) MPI found on Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 clusters. For UNIX and Linux platforms the current MPI implementation in the Grid Computing Toolbox supports MPICH2.

Parallel jobs can be launched interactively from within Maple by providing the number of nodes to run on.

Parallel jobs can also be launched from a batch system like PBS, in which case PBS will control which nodes the job will run on.

To get started quickly, you can run a personal server on your desktop machine in order to develop and test parallel applications before running them on a real grid. The PersonalGridServer worksheet allows you to quickly start such a personal server. In this way, you can simulate a grid with any number of nodes on your desktop.

In order to configure Grid for running on a cluster of machines, in "hpc" mode you must start Grid Servers on each machine that you want to run a parallel job on. Once the servers are started, you, or anyone else with the Grid package and access to the servers, can run any number of parallel jobs until the servers are shut down. See Starting the grid server for more details.  In "mpi" and "local" modes, no external Grid Server process needs to be started.

Now you are ready to launch parallel jobs, you must first choose a mode of execution by running the Grid[Setup] command.  When choosing a distributed mode, either "mpi" or "hpc", the simplest next step is to execute the Grid[Launch]() command (with no arguments). This will open this Interactive worksheet that allows you to easily launch jobs. There are also examples on how to write a parallel Maple program. Note: This command only works using the Standard Worksheet Interface.

For advanced use, there are a number of other ways to start parallel jobs. You can use the Grid[Launch] command, specifying the number of nodes and the code to run, or you can use a command-line tool to launch parallel batch jobs.

$\mathrm{grid\_host}≔''localhost''\:$$\mathrm{grid\_port}≔2000\:$$\mathrm{numNodes}≔3\:$$\mathrm{Grid}\left[\mathrm{Setup}\right]\left(''hpc''\,\mathrm{host}=\mathrm{grid\_host}\,\mathrm{port}=\mathrm{grid\_port}\right)$

$\mathrm{Grid}\left[\mathrm{Server}\right]\left[\mathrm{StartServer}\right]\left(\mathrm{port}=\mathrm{grid\_port}\,\mathrm{numnodes}=\mathrm{numNodes}\right)$

$23351$

$\mathrm{TotalNodes},\mathrm{AvailableNodes}≔\mathrm{Grid}\left[\mathrm{Status}\right]\left(\right)$

$\mathrm{TotalNodes},\mathrm{AvailableNodes}≔3,3$

$\mathrm{result}≔\mathrm{Grid}\left[\mathrm{Launch}\right]\left(\mathrm{numnodes}=\mathrm{AvailableNodes}\,\mathrm{sampleCode}\right)$

Node 0: "PID=", 23461

Node 1: "PID=", 23465
Node 2: "PID=", 23463

Node 2: 144
Node 1: 11
Node 0: 11
Node 0: 144

$\mathrm{result}≔\left[0\,11\,144\right]$

$\mathrm{Grid}\left[\mathrm{Server}\right]\left[\mathrm{StopServer}\right]\left(\mathrm{port}=\mathrm{grid\_port}\,\mathrm{numnodes}=\mathrm{numNodes}\right)$

$0$