[Mauiusers] Newsletter * April 2006

[amber webb]

Cluster Resources Newsletter - April 2006
Optimizing your Compute Resources
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www.ClusterResources.com/April06 
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NEWS/ANNOUNCEMENTS 

1.CLUSTER RESOURCES CELEBRATES PRODUCT ANNIVERSARIES
2.CLUSTER RESOURCES ANNOUNCES NEW PROVO LOCATION
3.MOAB CLUSTER SUITE CERTIFIED ON HP XC CLUSTERS
4.CLUSTER RESOURCES COMMENCES TOP500 RESEARCH STUDY
5.DID YOU KNOW: JOB AGGREGATION TIME

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CLUSTER RESOURCES CELEBRATES PRODUCT ANNIVERSARIES

Cluster Resources, Inc. is proud to celebrate the
anniversaries of its two flagship products this year. 
2006 marks the 10-year anniversary of the 1996 creation 
of Maui, as well as the five-year anniversary of Moab, 
created in 2001.

"The creation of Maui, and later Moab, has unleashed 
enormous potential for supercomputing," said Dave 
Jackson, developer of both Maui and Moab. "Both 
products have been part of the tremendous evolution in 
the clustering scene over the years, and both have 
proven flexible enough to adapt to cluster changes, 
continually improving optimization."

Moab expands upon the success of Maui's open source 
cluster scheduling capabilities by improving the 
cluster, grid, and utility management tools.  Moab also 
provides organizations with a flexible architecture and 
intelligent scheduling to increase utilization of 
resources.

To learn more about what Cluster Resources is doing with 
Moab, Maui and other products, visit 
http://www.clusterresources.com.


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CLUSTER RESOURCES ANNOUNCES NEW PROVO LOCATION

Cluster Resources has officially moved to its new 
headquarters located in Provo, Utah. More than double 
the size of its previous facilities, Cluster Resources' 
new location will aid the company's rapid growth in 
terms of employees, general infrastructure and testing 
facilities.

"Our new offices will provide greater convenience for 
our customers and partners," said Amber Webb, 
Communications Manager at Cluster Resources. "The 
location, amenities and room for additional growth will 
aid in our endeavor to provide the best possible 
service."

Cluster Resources, which experienced more than 100 
percent growth in the past year, wishes to thank our 
customers and partners for their continued support as 
we have expanded our products and services. We also wish 
to thank everyone for your patience during the move.

Cluster Resources' new contact information is as 
follows:

Mail:
Cluster Resources, Inc.
33 E. 1700 South, Suite 111
Provo, UT 84606

Email:
info at clusterresources.com 

Phone:
+1 (801) 873-3400
+1 (888) 221-2008 (Toll Free U.S.) 

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MOAB CLUSTER SUITE CERTIFIED ON HP XC CLUSTERS

HP certified earlier this month Cluster Resources' Moab 
Cluster Suite on its XC Clusters, providing customers 
using the popular Linux-based XC cluster with a 
comprehensive and simple workload management and 
scheduling solution. The certification confirms that 
Moab is fully compatible with HP XC Clusters.

"HP has designed a cluster environment that is simple 
to use, yet powerful, and provides high quality for the 
price," said Bruce Toal, director, Marketing and 
Solutions HPC, HP. "When Moab Cluster Suite
is added into the HP XC software stack, users can have 
greater control over how their resources are utilized 
and can now have the capability to integrate XC 
resources into a grid of multiple, possibly 
heterogeneous, systems and clusters all running 
different schedulers and grid tools."

Cluster Resources invites all current and prospective XC 
Cluster users who are unfamiliar with Moab to learn more 
at: www.clusterresources.com/moab. Any additional 
questions can be answered by Cluster Resources' support 
staff at +1 (801) 873-3400. You can purchase Moab 
Cluster Suite through Cluster Resources or HP.  More 
information about HP XC Clusters is available at 
www.hp.com/go/clusters.

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CLUSTER RESOURCES COMMENCES TOP500 RESEARCH STUDY

Cluster Resources is pleased to announce the launch of a 
research study aimed to discover best practices of the 
Top500 and other leading supercomputing sites regarding 
their requests for proposals. The goal of the study is 
to provide the HPC community with the results to 
facilitate improved communication and overall 
satisfaction between customers and vendors.

"As sites look to update and add to their supercomputing 
resources, finding the best strategies and solutions for 
their needs can be a difficult task," said Nick Ihli, 
Technical Marketing Manager. "We want to provide the 
supercomputing community with those tools that will aid 
sites in achieving the greatest return on their 
investments."

The study is anticipated to extend throughout the coming 
year, beginning with academic sites and progressing on 
to government and commercial sites. Results from the 
study will be published as each phase is completed.

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DID YOU KNOW: JOB AGGREGATION TIME

Organizations who have implemented a grid system 
connecting their multiple clusters can easily experience 
job scheduling cycles that slow down the user interface 
due to randoms bursts of job submissions from one or 
more end users. The slowdown is a result of the resource 
manager notifying the scheduler each time a job is 
submitted. The scheduler, in an attempt to minimize 
response time, will start a new scheduling cycle to 
determine if the newly submitted job can run. However, 
this process slows down the system for two reasons. 
First, each individual job will be scheduled on a first 
come first serve basis. Second, a heavy load is placed 
on the resource manager because it has to contact the 
scheduler for every job submission and then wait for a 
response from the scheduler before it proceeds to the 
next job submitted.

These problems can be resolved by implementing Moab's 
Job Aggregation Time feature. Job Aggregation Time 
specifies the minimum amount of time the scheduler 
should wait after receiving a job event until it should 
process that event. For example, if a user were to 
submit 1000 new jobs simultaneously, administrators 
could specify that Moab would wait a predetermined 
amount of time between scheduling cycles when job 
events have been received. This parameter allows sites 
to process job events in groups decreasing total job 
scheduling cycles and allowing the scheduler to make 
more intelligent choices by aggregating job submissions 
and choosing between the jobs.

To learn more about Job Aggregation Time, go to 
www.clusterresources.com/jobaggregationtime. For more 
information about Moab, e-mail 
info at clusterresources.com or contact a Cluster 
Resources' representative at +1 (801) 873-3400.
 ______________________________________________________

Contact Us: 
Product Feedback, Technical Support, Consulting and 
Custom Development queries can be sent to 
info at clusterresources.com or call us at 
+1 (801) 873-3400

Moab Workload ManagerTM, Moab Cluster ManagerTM and 
MonitorTM, and Moab Access PortalTM are trademarks or 
registered trademarks of Cluster Resources 
IncorporatedTM.