[Moabusers] Cluster Resources' Newsletter - January 2008

OPTIMIZING YOUR COMPUTE RESOURCES
Cluster Resources' Newsletter - January 2008
________________________________________

NEWS / ANNOUNCEMENTS
1.  Events
2.  Product/Solution Focus: Moab Hybrid Cluster
3.  What's New: Upgraded TORQUE with Server High Availability 
4.  Software Updates and Releases
5.  Training
6.  Did You Know
7.  FAQs

www.clusterresources.com 

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1. Events

-Cluster Resources at SC'07

Michael A. Jackson, president of Cluster Resources, presented "What's In
Store: How Organizations Cope as they Mature From Clusters to Adaptive
Computing" to a standing-room-only crowd at SC07. A pdf file of the
presentation is available at
http://www.clusterresources.com/media/Marketing%20Resources/SC07_WhatsInStore_ClusterResources3.pdf. 
(note: pdf file is ~4mb)

-Brainshare '08

Cluster Resources will be exhibiting at Novell's Brainshare 2008. Visit us
at booth 623. March 16-21, Salt Lake City, Utah.

-ISC'08

Cluster Resources will be attending and exhibiting at International
Supercomputing 2008 in Dresden, Germany June 17-20; Visit us at booth
C-15/16

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2. Product/Solution Focus

Moab Hybrid Cluster: A Mixed Windows/Linux Cluster Solution

Moab Hybrid Windows/Linux Cluster solution, which uses Moab Cluster Suite to
dynamically change a node's OS on the fly in order to meet workload needs,
is now available. 

As a meta-scheduler, Moab optimally determines when the OS mix should be
modified based upon defined policies and service level agreements as well as
current and projected workload. When the specified conditions are met, Moab
triggers the OS change using a site's preferred OS-modification technology,
such as dual boot, diskfull and/or diskless provisioning or virtualization
(i.e., via Hyper-V within Windows Server 2008, VMware, or Xen). 

Read more about Moab Hybrid Cluster at
http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/products/moab-hybrid-cluster.php.    

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3. What's New

TORQUE: Server High Availability

The option of running TORQUE in a redundant or high availability mode has
been implemented. This means that there can be multiple instances of the
server running and waiting to take over processing in the event that the
server currently running fails.

Two server host machines can be running pbs_server at the same time. The two
servers have their torque/server_priv directory mounted on a shared NFS file
system. The pbs_server's need to be started with the --ha command line
option that will allow two servers to be running at the same time. Only the
first server to start will complete the full startup. The second server to
start will block very early in the startup when it tries to lock the file
torque/server_priv/server.lock. When the second server cannot obtain the
lock, it will spin in a loop and sleep waiting for the lock to clear. The
sleep time between checks of the lock file is one second. 

To learn more about server high availability, go to:
http://www.clusterresources.com/torquedocs21/4.3high-availability.shtml.  

To download the new version of TORQUE go to
http://www.clusterresources.com/downloads/torque.  

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4. Software Updates and Releases 

- Moab 5.1.0, Patch 9. Released to address an issue in the core scheduling. 
It is now available to download from
http://www.clusterresources.com/downloads/mwm/.   

- Moab Workload Manager 5.2 has been released, bringing enhancements in

efficiency and flexibility to all levels of HPC! It is available for
download at https://www.clusterresources.com/downloads/mwm. For more
information read the press release at
http://www.clusterresources.com/media/Press%20Releases2/Moab%205.2%20Release
.pdf.

NOTE: Moab 5.1.0-p8 contains an issue that can cause Moab to believe that
its license file has expired. When Moab detects what it believes is an
expired license file, it gracefully shuts down and stops scheduling. Running
jobs continue to execute, but no new jobs are started. If Moab does shut
down due to this issue, it can be restarted in the normal manner and will
continue to operate properly.

This issue only affects Moab 5.1.0-p8 and appears to only affect a subset of
users who are running Moab with Moab Cluster Manager and who have license
files that are several months old.

Moab 5.1.0-p9 was released last month and contains a fix for this
issue. We recommend that any site running Moab 5.1.0-p8 in conjunction with
Moab Cluster Manager upgrade to Moab 5.1.0-p9 or Moab 5.2 at their
convenience. Both upgrades should be a drop-in replacements with no config
changes required.


- Moab Cluster Builder (formerly code named Escalante) - the full HPC-stack

deployment solution based on Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 - is
in final beta with a targeted release date of January 31, 2008. For more
information go to
http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/products/moab-cluster-builder.php.


- Gold Allocation Manager 2.1.5 has been released and has added indexes to

tables which increase database performance up to ten times. These latest
improvements come as a result of help from Karl Lindekugel of Arizona State
University and Brock Palen of Louisiana State University. 

No need to upgrade to take advantage of Gold's increased database
performance. Indexes can simply be added to an existing Gold database to
achieve the full benefit. Instructions for adding indexes can be found in
the change log at
http://www.clusterresources.com/downloads/gold/changelog.txt.  
or version 2.1.5 can be downloaded at
http://www.clusterresources.com/downloads/gold/  

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5. Training

Monthly FREE Moab Online Training is available for Moab Evaluators! 

These live, interactive demonstrations show how easy it is to evaluate Moab
and go into detail about the tools we provide that make the evaluation
simple and effective. 

The tutorial covers How to Use Moab, as well as the following: 
 Moab Architecture
 Installation
 Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
 Admin tools
 End User tools
 Testing Modes 

The next demonstrations are scheduled for: 

Part 1: Clusters
U.S Time Zones
Wed, Jan. 30, 2008 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

EMEA Time Zones
Thu., Jan. 31, 2008 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM GMT

Part 2: Grid
U.S Time Zones 
Wed, Feb 6., 2008 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

If this time does not work for you, please contact us at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] to schedule a demonstration outside the
current times. More times and sessions focused on Moab Grid Suite will
follow. 

To register for one of the time slots, please visit
http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/services/eval-training.php.   

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6. Did You Know: Online Demonstrations Available 

Moab Cluster ManagerR - Admin Interface Demo

Moab Cluster Manager is a task-based cluster management interface, monitor
and reporting tool for Moab Workload ManagerR. Moab Cluster Manager reduces
administration costs by enabling command complex management tasks such as
cluster status, diagnostics, data staging, report generation and job
submission to be done faster and easier. Now you can view the functionality
of Moab Cluster Manager though a screenshot Flash demonstration. This
demonstration is using a 256 node cluster and demonstrates features such as
job submission, reservation creation, and statistics reporting.

View the Online Demonstration at
http://clusterresources.com/pages/products/mcmdemo.php. 

To see Moab Cluster Manager's capabilities beyond this online demonstration,
it is available to install and evaluate on your own cluster or workstation
without any limitations. Download the Cluster Manager evaluation from the
Moab evaluation page.

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7. Frequently Asked Questions 

Cluster Resources has posted answers to frequently asked technical questions
at
http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/resources/documentation/common-issues.
php.  

Cluster Resources has a Moab Evaluation Product FAQ page located at:
http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/resources/faq.php.  

Cluster Resources offers FREE evaluation copies of Moab Grid Suite at
http://www.clusterresources.com/grideval. This allows current Moab customers
and all others to evaluate Moab's grid and cluster functionality.

During the evaluation period, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] for
free evaluation support. 

For more information on Moab Grid Suite, go to
http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/products/moab-grid-suite.php.   

******************************************************** 
Contact Us:

Send inquiries regarding Products, Product Feedback, Technical Support,
Consulting or Custom Development to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or phone 
+1 (801) 717-3700. 

Copyright C 2008 Cluster Resources, Inc. All rights reserved. Cluster
Resources, Moab, Moab Cluster Manager, Moab Cluster Suite, Moab Workload
Manager, Moab Grid Suite, Moab Cluster Builder, Moab Hybrid Cluster and Moab
Access Portal are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cluster Resources,
Inc. Any other company or product names may be the property of those
companies.



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