From Clusters to the Fabric: The Job Management Perspective

Clusters provide an outstanding cost/performance ratio, but their efficient orchestration, i.e. their cooperative management, maintenance, and use, still poses difficulties. Moreover, many sites operate multiple clusters, each possibly running under a different cluster management system. In this paper, we present an architectural scheme for the coordinated management of multiple clusters in a fabric. Our scheme allows different cluster management systems to interact with each other via adaptors, thereby providing interoperability within a single administrative entity, the fabric. Using adaptors, various jobs (grid jobs, local jobs, system maintenance jobs) can be served by the same methods, and existing cluster management software (like LSF, PBS, CCS, etc.) can be extended by additional functions without much modification effort.