[Bioclusters] Request for discussions-How to build a biocluster Part 4 (batch systems)

[Andrew Shewmaker]

On Thu, 02 May 2002 13:56:44 -0400
"Sylvain Foisy" <foisys@mac.com> wrote:


> THE BATCH SYSTEM
> 
> We had a look around and decided to go with an open-source system, 
> primary because of cost consideration but also for philosophical 
> reasons. After looking hard, I found the following solutions:
> 
> The Condor project
> Parasol
> OSCAR
> Sun GridEngine

I have not used Condor, but keep in mind the limitations listed at 
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/manual/v6.3/1_4Current_Limitations.html

OSCAR is not a load balancing system, but it does include OpenPBS.
 
> After reading the docs for each, we have pretty much decided either for 
> OSCAR or SGE. What should be our criterions for finalizing our choice? 
> Any inputs from people with experience with both systems would be 
> appreciated.

They are both fairly easy to set up in a basic configuration, and both 
take a bit more time to customize for things like consumable resources 
and parallel environments (e.g. mpi and pvm).  I like Grid Engine better 
so far because I was able to set up parallel execution environments 
more quickly and with tighter integration.  Note that when I tried it 
with OpenPBS a couple of years ago on Linux Alpha I was brand new to 
clusters.  One thing you might take into account is that the Grid 
Engine has the same code as the commercial version sold and supported 
by Sun.  I believe PBSpro eventually folds improvements into OpenPBS, 
so that might not be seen as that great of a benefit.

The University of Alberta has a web interface to PBS (haven't used it).
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~pinchak/PBSWeb/intro.html
I think Sun is making a web portal for for Grid Engine, but I 
couldn't find it on their site.

One other thing.  The open source community around OpenPBS is older 
and probably quite a bit bigger than SGE's.  The volume of mail on 
their support lists reflects this.  I have gotten excellent help 
quickly on both mailing lists.

Andrew Shewmaker