HP XC System Software Installation Guide Version 2.1

Table 3-1: The XC Software Stack (cont.)
Software Product Description
LSF HPC with SLURM on XC The Load Sharing Facility (LSF HPC) developed by Platform
Computing, Inc. provides both direct job allocation and
policy-scheduled interactive and batch queue management on
an XC system. LSF HPC provides a rich set of policies for
scheduling and prioritizing jobs based on combinations of static
and dynamic system attributes.
LSF HPC is layered on top of the Simple Linux Utility
for Resource M anagement (SLURM) to provide high-level
scheduling services on an XC system.
MySQL database The MySQL database stores information about the XC system
configuration.
Nagios® system monitoring tool Nagios is a system and network monitoring application. It
watches hosts and services that you specify and alerts you when
problems occur or are resolved. On the XC system, Nagios is
integrated with SuperMon for monitoring capabilities.
Parallel Distributed Shell (pdsh)Thepdsh shell is a multithreaded remote shell that executes
commands on multiple remote hosts in parallel.
SLURM
SLURM was developed by Lawrence L ivermore National
Laboratory and Linux Networks. SLURM is a resource manager
for Linux clusters and it manages the key resource on an XC
system: the compute nodes.
SuperMon
SuperMon is a highly scalable, high-speed cluster monitoring
system. SuperMon provides all required node statistics to the
Nagios subsystem. System statistics are tiered and aggregated
andstoredintheXCdatabase.
syslog-ng
The syslog-ng logging tool improves upon traditional
syslog functionality. It supplies more flexibility to handle logs,
adds better filters, and contains a better forwarding mechanism.
SystemImager®
The SystemImager tool synchronizes the configuration of nodes
across the system using image propagation. This allows for ease
of installation of the initial software and for ease of upgrading
software and c onfiguration files.
Refer to the Preface at the beginning of this manual for links and pointers to more information
about the open source and third-party software components that are integrated in to the XC
core technology.
3
.1.2 Installation Summary
The XC software installatio n process initially begins on the head node and is based on the
Kickstart automated installation process developed by Red Hat, Inc. The XC Kickstart process
uses a predefined configuration file that contains the answers to m a ny of the questions required
to install the base operating system for an XC system.
T
he single XC DVD software distribution contains a bootable installation image and an
embedded Kickstart file. W hen the c ommand to initiate a Kickstart installation is issued, the
Kickstart file is found on the DVD, an d i t is used to automatically control the base operating
system installation after a few required user responses are provided.
After the head node is installed, it eventually also b ecomes the golden client, which is the node
that represents the configuration from which all other nodes will be replicated.
3-2 Installing Software on the Head Node