Pixar has just announced a new render tool designed to replace their current Alfred and Alfserver products, named Tractor.  Designed in 3 parts (Engine, Blade, and Dashboard), it is written in Python and designed for both large and small renderfarms with a simple license model of $99 per node.

Tractor’s streamlined design ensures quick deployment, and delivers high performance with a queuing engine capable of dispatching over 500 commands per second. Tractor 1.0 uses proven, open web standards and is highly customizable, for example allowing systems administrators to easily add Python extension modules to Tractor Blades and customize the specifics of how tasks are launched.

via CGSociety – PIXAR Tractor 1.0.