README

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  ~ CloudCrowd ~

    * Parallel processing for the rest of us
    * Write your scripts in Ruby
    * Works with Amazon EC2 and S3
    * split -> process -> merge
    * As easy as `gem install cloud-crowd`

    Well-suited for:
    
    * Generating or resizing images.
    * Encoding video.
    * Running text extraction or OCR on PDFs.
    * Migrating a large file set or database.
    * Web scraping.
    
    
  ~ Documentation ~
  
    Wiki: http://wiki.github.com/documentcloud/cloud-crowd
    Rdoc: http://rdoc.info/projects/documentcloud/cloud-crowd
  
  
  ~ Getting started ~
  
    # Install the gem.
    
      >> sudo gem install cloud-crowd
    
    # Install the CloudCrowd configuration files to a location of your choosing.
    
      >> crowd install ~/config/cloud-crowd
    
    # Now, you can use the full complement of `crowd` commands from inside of
    # this configuration directory. To see the available commands:
    
      >> crowd --help
    
    # Edit the configuration files to your satisfaction, add AWS credentials, 
    # and then load the CloudCrowd schema into your configured database.
    
      >> cd ~/config/cloud-crowd
      >> mate config.yml
      >> mate database.yml
      >> [create the database you just configured...]
      >> crowd load_schema
    
    # Write your actions, and install them into the 'actions' subdirectory.
    # CloudCrowd comes with a few default actions as an example.
    
    # To launch the central server (make sure that you include its location
    # in config.yml):
    
      >> crowd server
    
    # The configuration folder also includes 'config.ru', which can be used by
     # any Rack-compliant webserver to run your central server.
    
    # Then, to launch a node of workers:
    
      >> crowd node
    
    # To spin up remote nodes, install the 'cloud-crowd' gem and copy over
    # your configuration directory. Run `crowd node`, and the remote machines
    # will register with the central server, becoming available for processing.
    
    # At this point you can visit your Operations Center at localhost:9173 to 
    # view all of your nodes, ready for action.