  In this paper we present Ethane, a parallel search algorithm specifically
designed for its execution on heterogeneous hardware environments. With Ethane
we propose an algorithm inspired in the structure of the chemical compound of
the same name, implementing a heterogeneous island model based in the structure
of its chemical bonds. We also propose a schema for describing a family of
parallel heterogeneous metaheuristics inspired by the structure of hydrocarbons
in Nature, HydroCM (HydroCarbon inspired Metaheuristics), establishing a resem-
blance between atoms and computers, and between chemical bonds and
communication links. Our goal is to gracefully match computers of different
power to algorithms of different behavior (GA and SA in this study), all them
collaborating to solve the same problem. The analysis will show that Ethane,
though simple, can solve search problems in a faster and more robust way than
well-known panmitic and distributed algorithms very popular in the literature.
