On 03/10/13 00:00, Dave Love wrote:
Lionel SPINELLI <[email protected]> writes:
Hello all,
I have a question that is not directly linked to SGE but relates to
the same. Which tool administrators that have to install, manage,
configure and ensure coherence between lot of grid nodes use? I mean,
if I have 10 nodes in my grid and need to be sure that all of them
have the right software/configuration, I don't want to manually
configure each machine.
It seems to be a religious topic... My requirements for managing node
images are:
1. free software
2. stateless image (NFS root + local /tmp; modify the shared root
more-or-less directly)
3. support for heterogeneous systems with different images for multiple
OSes and customizing for different node groups with a single image
4. decoupled from the OS (not living somewhat in its own world, like
Rocks) so you do normal package management
When I had to pick one swiftly, the only one it was clear would do
3. properly was oneSIS <http://www.onesis.org>, though probably others
can. I've run a 250-node horrible mess of hardware as a shared
everything cluster with oneSIS off a single NFS server. I recently
replaced a vendor's useless imaging scheme with it for the second time.
Do you know a simple tool that could do the job? My researches lead me
to "Puppet Master" but I would like to get advises from experts...
I'm not convinced that's appropriate for an HPC cluster, but people with
more HPC experience disagree.
You need tools apart from image management, of course.
In lots of ways (as with so many things), this is a case of you first
need to do is define your requirements... they are certainly not the
same for all clusters / setups. Most management solutions will get you
there in the end, but you can safe yourself a lot of effort by sizing
them to your requirements.
For example, Dave started his description with "My requirements for
managing node images are" - in some ways, that's already very different
from what I need to do (or how I look at it), as I don't actually have
any requirement to manage node images.
Our base requirement is for our whole server/workstation estate
(including cluster) to have a known and defined configuration/software
environment. Everything's PXE booted of the same installer image.
Everything uses the same kickstart file. So to us, it all boils down to
configuration management - hence CFEngine.
I'd second Dave's requirement 4 - I wouldn't really go for anything
that's coupled to the OS.
Tina
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