Jackie Silcock

GENESIS: an efficient, transparent and easy to use cluster operating system

Present operating systems are not built to support parallel computing--they do not provide services to manage parallelism, i.e., to globally manage parallel processes and computational resources. The cluster operating environments that are used to assist the execution of parallel applications do not provide support for both programming paradigms, message passing (MP) or distributed shared memory (DSM)--they are mainly offered as separate components implemented at the user level as library and independent server processes. Due to poor operating systems users must deal with clusters as a set of independent computers rather than to see this cluster as a single powerful computer. A single system image (SSI) of the cluster is not offered to users. There is a need for an operating system for clusters. We claim and demonstrate in this paper that it is possible to develop a cluster operating system that is able to efficiently manage parallelism; use cluster resources efficiently; support MP in the form of standard MP and PVM, and DSM; offer SSI; and make it easy to use. We show that to achieve these aims this operating system should inherit many features of a distributed operating system and provide new services which address the needs of parallel processes, clusters resources, and application developers. In order to substantiate the claim the first version of a cluster operating system managing parallelism and offering SSI, called GENESIS:, has been developed.

The RHODOS DSM system

Abstract The RHODOS Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) system forms an easy to program (using sequential programming skills without a need to learn DSM concepts) and transparent environment, and provides high performance computational services. This system also allows programmers to use either the sequential or release consistency model for the shared memory. These attributes have been achieved by integrating DSM into the RHODOS distributed operating system rather than putting it on top of an existing operating system, as have other researchers. In this paper we report on the development of a DSM system integrated into RHODOS and how it supports programmers; the programming of three applications to demonstrate ease of programming; and the results of running these three applications using the two different consistency protocols.

Performance and transparency of message passing and DSM services within the GENESIS operating system for managing parallelism on COWs

The primary paradigm for building parallel applications for execution on clusters of workstations (COWs) can be generalised into message passing (MP) and distributed shared memory (DSM). Unfortunately the currently available run-time environments and operating systems do not provide satisfactory levels of transparency, management support, and only support either MP or DSM. We propose a unique and novel approach where the MP and DSM services are provided to the application programmer as a cohesive and comprehensive set of parallel processing servers that are integral components of an operating system. The performance of a number of common parallel applications, employing both MP (raw and PVM based) and DSM, demonstrate the high quality of the proposed approach.

Toward an Operating System That Supports Parallel Processing on Nondedicated Clusters

Present operating systems are not built to support parallel computing on clusters - they do not provide services to manage parallelism, i.e., to manage parallel processes and cluster resources. They do not provide support for both programming paradigms, Message Passing (MP) or Distributed Shared Memory (DSM). Due to poor operating systems, users must deal with computers of a cluster rather than to see this cluster as a single powerful computer. There is a need for cluster operating systems. We claim that it is possible to develop a cluster operating system that is able to efficiently manage parallelism, support MP and DSM and offer transparency. To substantiate this claim the first version of a cluster operating system managing parallelism and offering transparency, called GENESIS, has been developed.