Kestrel: An Interface from Optimization Modeling Systems to the NEOS Server

The NEOS server provides access to a variety of optimization resources via the Internet. The new Kestrel interface to the server enables local modeling environments to request NEOS optimization services and retrieve the results for local visualization and analysis so that users have the same convenient access to remote NEOS solvers as to those installed locally. Kestrel agents have been implemented for the AMPL and GAMS modeling environments; these agents have been designed so that subproblems can be queued for execution and later retrieval of results, making possible a rudimentary form of parallel processing.