MOSIX
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
MOSIX is a management system for a Linux cluster or a Grid of Linux clusters that provides a Single-System Image (SSI). In a MOSIX cluster/Grid there is no need to modify or to link applications with any library, to copy files or login to remote nodes, or even to assign processes to different nodes - it is all done automatically, like in an SMP.
MOSIX has been developed since 1981 at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem by the research group of Prof. Amnon Barak. So far, 10 major versions were developed. The first version, called MOS (Multicomputer OS) (1983) was based on Bell Lab's Unix 7 and ran on a cluster of PDP-11 computers. Later versions were based on Unix System V (1987) and ran on a cluster of VAX and NS32532 computers, followed by a BSD version (1993) for a cluster of 486/Pentium computers. Since 1999 MOSIX is tuned to Linux for x86 platforms.
MOSIX is implemented as an OS virtuallization layer that provides to users and applications an SSI with the Linux run-time environment. It allows applications to run in remote nodes as if they run locally. Users run their regular (sequential and parallel) applications while MOSIX transparently and automatically seek resources and migrate processes among nodes to improve the overall performance.
The latest version of MOSIX can manage a Virtual Organizational (VO) Grid, with one or more clusters as well as workstations and other shared resources. Flexible management of a VO allows owners of clusters to share their computational resources, while still preserving their autonomy over their own clusters and their ability to disconnect their nodes from the Grid at any time, without disrupting already running programs.
A MOSIX Grid can extend indefinitely as long as there is trust between its cluster owner. This must include guarantees that guest applications will not be modified while running in remote clusters and that no hostile computers can be connected to the local network. Nowadays these requirements are standard within clusters and organizational grids.
MOSIX is most suitable for running compute intensive applications with low to moderate amount of I/O. Tests of MOSIX show that the performance of several such applications over a 1Gb/s campus Grid is nearly identical to that of a single cluster.
