[Beowulf] cluster scheduler implemented via MPI?

[Tony Travis]

On 15/05/10 23:40, Peter St. John wrote:
> I just want to remark that I'm curious about peer-to-peer scheduling,
> where nodes would negotiate among each other according to priorities,
> needs, and idle resources.

Hello, Peter.

I think SSI (Single System Image) does this to some extent: openMosix, 
for example, does not have a 'head' node in the sense of a centralised 
shcheduler and Kerrighed is similar. What both these systems have is a 
notion of the 'home' node where a job originates. Kerrighed can also use 
an openMosix-based scheduler. If you're interested, take a look at:

   http://www.kerrighed.org

This is an active project - The openMosix project closed two years ago, 
and MOSIX2 is a commercial product. Apart from the fact that MOSIX2 is 
not open source, it looks very good. However, Kerrighed has some other 
interesting and potentially very useful features such as the ability to 
aggregate the distributed memory in a way that conventional (non-MPI) 
programs can access. Kerrighed also uses quite an efficient TIPC-based 
inter-kernel communication protocol.

I'm now using 32-bit Kerrghed, but it's not really stable enough for a 
production environment, and most of the Kerrighed development work is 
being done on the 64-bit version. So, I've retired most of our 32-bit 
kit now and we will soon be running a 64-bit Kerrighed Beowulf :-)

Bye,

   Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition
and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK
tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk
mailto:a.travis at abdn.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt