Re: Clusterwide pids

["David L. Nicol" <dnicol@cstp.umkc.edu>]

Lars Marowsky-Bree wrote:

> 
> Hierarchial clusters are hard enough, being a member of two clusters at once
> is an interesting problem - what possible advantages do you see here?

Since it was part of the early posts to this list, I'll try to answer
this one:

Multiple clusters at once simplifies hierarchical clusters.  In fact
it may be considered a prerequisite for it.

Say you've got ten universites, each with ten labs, each with
ten machines.  Each lab is administered seperately, but as part
of an Internet2 initiative all hundred labs have received a grant
to implement a process migration cluster.

If this was to be done using COTS MOSIX, all thousand machines would
get listed in a map file which is shared by all thousand.

With multiple clusters, each lab can form one cluster, one machine
in each lab can be designated as the representative to the U. cluster,
and one of these ten (or maybe a designated server) can be the
designated representative to the wide area cluster.

Not only is administration greatly simplified, since you no longer
need to touch the map files in Iowa City when a DHCP lease
expires in San Bernadino, but the migration decisions at the
leaf node level are eased: the leaf nodes do not need to even
consider machines outside of their immediate bailiwick.

A dually connected machine might advertise as available resources
the other clusters connected to it.

and so forth.


Still waiting for that grant by the way -- I guess I'd better get
on writing the application!


-- 
                                           David Nicol 816.235.1187
                      Irish Government Warning: SMOKERS DIE YOUNGER


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