Thursday December 18, 2008

A busy day for fresh HPC bits, apparently...

The Sun Grid Engine team is looking for experienced SGE users interested in taking their latest Update release for a test drive. The Update includes bug fixes, but also some new features as well. Two features in particular caught my eye: a new GUI-based installer and optimizations to support very large Linux clusters (think TACC Ranger.)

Full details are below in the official call for beta testers. The beta program will run until February 2nd, 2009. Look no further for something to do during the upcoming holiday season. :-)

Sun Grid Engine 6.2 Update 2 Beta (SGE 6.2u2beta) Program

This README contains important information about the targeted audience of this beta release, new functionality, the duration of this SGE beta program and your possibilities to get support and provide feedback.

1. Audience of this beta program
2. Duration of the beta program and release date
3. New functionality delivered with this release
4. Installing SGE 6.2u2beta in parallel to a production cluster
5. Beta program feedback and evaluation support

1. Audience of this beta program

   This Beta is intended for users who already have experience with the Sun Grid Engine software or DRM (Distributed Resource Management) systems of other vendors. This beta adds new features to the SGE 6.2 software. Users new to DRM systems or users who are seeking a production ready release should use the Sun Grid Engine 6.2 Update 1 (SGE 6.2u1) release which is available from here.

   For the shipping SGE 6.2u1 release we are offering a free 30 day evaluation email support.

2. Duration of the Beta program and release date

   This beta program lasts until Monday, February 2, 2009. The final release of Sun Grid Engine 6.2 Update 2 is planned for March 2009.

3. New functionality delivered with this release

   Sun Grid Engine 6.2 Update 2 (SGE 6.2u2) is a feature update release for SGE 6.2 which adds the following new functionality to the product:

   • a GUI based installer helping new users to more easily install the software. It complements the existing CLI based installation routine.
   • new support for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows Vista (Enterprise and Ultimate Edition), Windows Server 2003R2 and Windows Server 2008.
   • a client and server side Job Submission Verifier (JSV) allows an administrator to control, enforce and adjust jobs requests, including job rejection. JSV scripts can be written in any scripting language, e.g. Unix shells, Perl or TCL.
   • consumable resource attributes can now be requested per job. This makes resource requests for parallel jobs much easier to define, especially when using slot ranges.
   • on Linux, the use of the 'jemalloc' malloc library improves performance and reduces memory requirements.
   • the use of the poll(2) system call instead of select(2) on Linux systems improves scalability of qmaster in extremely huge clusters.

4. Installing SGE 6.2u2 in parallel to a production cluster

   Like with every SGE release it is safe to install multiple Grid Engine clusters running multiple versions in parallel if all of the following settings are different:

   • directory
   • ports (environment variables) for qmaster and execution daemons
   • unique "cluster name" - from SGE 6.2 the cluster name is appended to the name of the system wide startup scripts
   • group id range ("gid_range")

   Starting with SGE 6.2 the Accounting and Reporting Console (ARCo) accepts reporting data from multiple Sun Grid Engine clusters. Following the installation directions for ARCo and using a unique cluster name for this beta release there is no risk of losing or mixing reporting data from multiple SGE clusters.

5. Beta Program Feedback and Evaluation Support

   We welcome your feedback and questions on this Beta. Weask you to restrict your questions to this Beta release only. If you need general evaluation support for the Sun Grid Engine software please subscribe to the free evaluation support by downloading and using the shipping version of SGE 6.2 Update 1.

   The following email aliases are available:

   • Technical support alias: sge-beta@sun.com
   • Feedback on documentation: sge-beta-doc@sun.com
   • General feedback: sge-beta-feedback@sun.com

(2008-12-18 11:30:25.0) Permalink Comments [0]
Trackback URL: http://blogs.sun.com/simons/entry/beta_testers_wanted_sun_grid
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