Press Release
November 30, 2004
"High Performance Linux Clusters with OSCAR, Rocks, openMosix, and MPI": A Comprehensive, Getting-Started Guide
Sebastopol, CA--To the outside world, a "supercomputer" appears to be a
single system. In fact, it's a cluster of computers that share a local
area network and have the ability to work together on a single problem as
a team. Many businesses used to consider supercomputing beyond the reach
of their budgets, but new Linux applications have made high-performance
clusters more affordable than ever. "A wealth of open source or free
software has emerged to make it easy to set up, administer, and program
these clusters," says Joseph D. Sloan, author of High Performance Linux
Clusters with OSCAR, Rocks, openMosix, and MPI (O'Reilly, US $39.95).
"Each individual package is accompanied by documentation, sometimes very
rich and thorough. But knowing where to start and how to get the
different pieces working proves daunting for many programmers and
administrators."
Sloan's new book provides an important overview of the issues that new
cluster administrators have to deal with in making their clusters meet
their needs, ranging from the initial hardware and software choices
through long-term considerations such as performance. The book focuses on
clustering for high-performance computation, although much of its
information also applies to clustering for high-availability (failover and
disaster recovery). High Performance Linux Clusters discusses the key
tools needed to get started, including good practices to use while
exploring the tools and growing a system. Readers will learn about
planning, hardware choices, bulk installation of Linux on multiple
systems, and other basic considerations. Then they'll learn about software
options that can save them hours--or even weeks--of deployment time.
Since a wide variety of options exist in each area of clustering software,
the author discusses the pros and cons of the major free software projects
and chooses those that are most likely to be helpful to new cluster
administrators and programmers. As Sloan explains, "In writing this book,
I have evaluated a large number of programs and selected for inclusion the
software I believe is the most useful for someone new to clustering. The
software described in the book is freely available, open source software.
All of it is available for use with Linux; however, much of it should work
nicely with other platforms as well.
"The book brings together all the information you'll need to get started,"
Sloan adds. "After reading it, you should have a clear idea of what is
possible, what is available, and where to go to get it. While this book
doesn't stand alone, it should reduce the amount of work you'll need to
do. I've tried to write the sort of book I would have wanted when I got
started with clusters."
A few of the projects introduced in High Performance Linux Clusters
include:
MPI, the most popular programming library for clusters; includes simple
but realistic introductory examples along with some pointers for advanced use
OSCAR and Rocks, two comprehensive installation and administrative systems
openMosix (a convenient tool for distributing jobs), Linux kernel
extensions that migrate processes transparently for load balancing
PVFS, one of the parallel filesystems that make clustering I/O easier
C3, a set of commands for administering multiple systems
Ganglia, OpenPBS, and cloning tools (Kickstart, SIS, and G4U) are also
covered. The book looks at cluster installation packages (OSCAR and Rocks)
and then considers the core packages individually for greater depth or for
folks wishing to do a custom installation. Guidelines for debugging,
profiling, performance tuning, and managing jobs from multiple users round
out this immensely useful book.
Additional Resources:
High Performance Linux Clusters
with OSCAR, Rocks, openMosix, and MPI
Joseph D. Sloan
ISBN: 0-596-00570-9, 350 pages, $39.95 US, $57.95 CA
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
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