Jeremy Fischer

Methods For Creating XSEDE Compatible Clusters

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment has created a suite of software that is collectively known as the basic XSEDE-compatible cluster build. It has been distributed as a Rocks roll for some time. It is now available as individual RPM packages, so that it can be downloaded and installed in portions as appropriate on existing and working clusters. In this paper, we explain the concept of the XSEDE-compatible cluster and explain how to install individual components as RPMs through use of Puppet and the XSEDE compatible cluster YUM repository.

XCBC and XNIT - Tools for Cluster Implementation and Management in Research and Training

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment has created a suite of software designed to facilitate the local management of computer clusters for scientific research and integration of such clusters with the US open research national cyberinfrastructure. This suite of software is distributed in two ways. One distribution is called the XSEDE-compatible basic cluster (XCBC), a Rocks Roll that does an “all at once, from scratch” installation of core components. The other distribution is called the XSEDE National Integration Toolkit (XNIT), so that specific tools can be downloaded and installed in portions as appropriate on existing clusters. In this paper, we describe the software included in XCBC and XNIT, and examine the use of XCBC installed on the LittleFe cluster design created by the Earlham College Cluster Computing Group as a teaching tool to show the deployment of XCBC from Rocks. In addition, the demonstration of the commercial Limulus HPC200 Deskside Cluster solution is shown as a viable, off-the-shelf cluster that can be adapted to become an XSEDE-like cluster through the use of the XNIT repository. We demonstrate that both approaches to cluster management - use of SCBC to build clusters from scratch and use of XNIT to expand capabilities of existing clusters - aid cluster administrators in administering clusters that are valuable locally and facilitate integration and interoperability of campus clusters with national cyberinfrastructure. We also demonstrate that very economical clusters can be useful tools in education and research. Categories and Subject Descriptors Theory of computation - Parallel computing models; Computer systems organization - Grid computing; Computer systems organization - Special purpose systems.

Innovations from the early user phase on the Jetstream Research Cloud.

We describe the Jetstream cyberinfrastructure for research, a purpose-built system with the goal of supporting “long-tail” research by providing a flexible infrastructure that can provide a set cloud services tuned for research applications, whether they be traditional HPC applications, science gateways, or desktop applications. Jetstream offers a library of virtual machines and allows the user to create their own virtual machines in order to provide an open cloud for science that allows both on-demand and persistent instances. The system is currently in early-user mode and a number of users at partner institutions are already creating and using images in the system. This paper details some of the early work being done with the system to create high performance clusters in an on-demand fashion to support scientific work directly as well as serve as capability backend to scientific gateways such as CyVerse and Galaxy.

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr TLS Sample Image

This is a sample Ubuntu image for use with Openstack. This is an example of an image to be saved from Jetstream.

Ubuntu 14.04.3 Development GUI

Initial Jetstream Featured image. Based on Ubuntu 14.04.3 Development Patched up to date as of 3/28/16 Base Ubuntu 14.04.3 + Xfce + Xfce-goodies, firefox, icon sets and themes

Ubuntu 14.04.3 Trusty Tahr

Initial Jetstream Featured image. Based on Ubuntu 14.04.3 Development Patched up to date as of 3/28/16 Base Ubuntu 14.04.3

CentOS 7 (7.2) Development

Initial Jetstream Featured image. Based on Centos 7 Cloud 1601 Image, Development tools added, Patched up to date as of 3/16/16

CentOS 6 (6.7) Development

Initial Jetstream Featured image. Based on Centos 6 Cloud 1601 Image, Development tools added, Patched up to date as of 3/16/16

CentOS 6 (6.7) Development GUI

Initial Jetstream Featured image. Based on CentOS 6 (6.7) Development. Patched up to date as of 3/29/16, turned off the following from default startup in GNOME: Bluetooth Power Manager Volume Control PulseAudio Package Manager