US Patent 7908375 Transparently externalizing plug-in computation to cluster

External processing of a request directed to an external software program from an invocation source to a cluster of computing devices. A wrapper tool is provided for processing the request from the invocation source. The request includes operations to be performed by the external software program on the host computer. The wrapper tool intercepted the request and extracts information included in the intercepted request. The extracted information is transmitted to a cluster scheduler. The cluster scheduler identifies a set of computing devices in the cluster of computing devices for processing the request. The identified set of computing devices processes the intercepted request as a function of the intercepted request, the information and the invocation source. A result is provided in response to the processed request from the identified set of computing devices to the invocation source.