Breaking News -
Operatings Systems & Middleware:
OSCAR Working Group Releases
Toolkit Version 2.2.1
The OSCAR working group is pleased to announce the release of version 2.2.1
of
the Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR) toolkit.
The OSCAR toolkit is used to build, configure and manage clusters. Its
primary
objective is to make use of "best practices" for Cluster High Performance
Computing (HPC). OSCAR enables a user to setup and maintain a cluster with the
same software typically found on HPC Clusters, while greatly reducing the
complexity of the installation and configuration process.
This release offers several enhancements; including improved support for
IA-64
based systems (e.g. Itanium I, II). The base SystemImager tool of the System
Installation Suite (SIS) was upgraded to v3.0. This upgrade adds a wealth of
new functionality, including: modular kernel support, Gigabit Ethernet and USB
keyboard support for autoinstall clients. The improved hardware detection
allows nodes to automatically load necessary modules based on the target
hardware. Also, the ability to set machines to initially network boot using
PXE and then modify subsequent boots to use the local hard disk has been
added.
There were several other package upgrades, including the Kernel_Picker
tool,
which assists with the selection of alternate kernel in OSCAR installations.
The OSCAR DAtabase (ODA) and OSCAR Package Downloader (OPD) were enhanced to
offer a more robust database and a remote package acquisition facility. The C3
power tools were updated, as was the LAM/MPI package.
In addition to package updates, the network collection facilities were
enhanced. The ability to both import and export MAC addresses from/to a file
has been added to assist those maintaining large clusters or who have this
data available. Also, an auto-assign and auto-dhcpd configuration was added,
which when coupled with the import facility speeds the node definition process
and results in nodes starting the build process earlier.
The OPD tool allows for updated or "3rd party" packages to be obtained from
remote OSCAR repositories. Several packages are available including the
Ganglia system monitoring tool, the Clumon performance monitoring system and
GM-oscar, a tool to configure Myrinet on OSCAR clusters.
The 2.2.1 releases offer full support for RedHat 7.2 & 7.3 and Mandrake
8.2.
There is experimental support for RedHat 7.1 and Mandrake 9.0.
Announcement: The OSCAR group would like to invite all interested users to
attend the first annual OSCAR Symposium this May 11-14, 2003 in Sherbrooke,
Canada. For more information please see oscar2003.ccs.usherbrooke.ca/.
The OSCAR working group is a consortium of industry, academic and research
participants. Primary contributors are Bald Guy Software, Dell, IBM, Intel,
Indiana University (IU), Intel, MSC.Software, National Computational Science
Alliance (NCSA), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Sherbrooke
University. OSCAR is the product of the OSCAR working group of the Open
Cluster Group (OCG). OCG is dedicated to making cluster computing practical.
These groups are open to all interested in participating.
Related resources:
ORNL is a Department of Energy multi-program research facility managed by
UT-Battelle.
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