Issues concerning Linux clustering: cluster management and application porting

Linux clusters have become the high performance compute (HPC) engine of choice for many industries seeking raw number crunching power with greater flexibility, reliability, scalability and price/performance over traditional supercomputers. Early adopters of the technology viewed the task of setting up an efficient and powerful Linux cluster system as a challenge, and typically have had access to a dedicated administration staff to ensure cluster stability. In today´s competitive environment, organizations must focus on their core competencies instead of spending valuable resources integrating, configuring and managing such systems. This being the case, cluster management is a top issue concerning the future adoption of the technology. As cluster systems scale from dozens, to hundreds, and even to thousands of processors, management becomes exponentially complex, and can be a daunting challenge for any organization. Keeping software up to date, monitoring hardware and software status, and even performing routine maintenance requires significant effort. To alleviate these efforts, administrators need to identify cluster management tools to help them gain control of cluster administration. The goal of any organization and administrator is to dedicate resources to computational processing - not system management. That is why Linux NetworX developed a suite of software and hardware tools to help alleviate cluster management issues. Linux NetworX is also developing application porting programs so both commercial general purpose and captive code applications can be used ported to the Linux platform and therefore take advantage of the benefits of Linux clustering.