HPCwire: Cluster Resources Celebrates Product Anniversaries

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April 07, 2006

Cluster Resources Celebrates Product Anniversaries

Ten years ago, the world's fastest supercomputer ran on 140 processors, a mere fraction of today's fastest supercomputer running on 131,072 processors. At that time, most organizations were looking for more power from their cluster by adding more processors, and in order to do this, they would need better software with powerful management capabilities. The need for better management led to two of Cluster Resources' flagship products, Moab and Maui, both of which mark anniversaries in 2006, Moab its 5th and Maui its 10th year of cluster optimization.

In 1996, David Jackson, founder and CTO of Cluster Resources, Inc. envisioned a software tool that would empower organizations to fully understand, control and optimize their compute resources. This initially led to the creation of Maui Cluster Scheduler. Five years later, Jackson developed a new architecture to make the solution more capable, robust and user-friendly, creating Moab.

"The creation of Maui and later Moab has unleashed enormous potential for supercomputing," Jackson said. "Both products have been part of the tremendous evolution in the clustering scene over the years, and both have proven flexible enough to adapt to cluster changes to continually improve optimization."

Ten years of Maui

The Maui open source cluster scheduler was downloaded three times during the first year it was created. Last year, Maui was downloaded or distributed more than 100,000 times, proving that the need for more cluster management capabilities has grown as rapidly and dramatically as the standard cluster size.

Maui, which was named for the island in Hawaii where Jackson lived while developing the software has been used at thousands of sites, and is included in cluster building kits such as OSCAR, Rocks and xCAT. Maui has evolved over the past decade with valuable contributions from the community. Organizations including CHPC at the University of Utah, Ohio State University, NCSA, University of Minnesota, Indiana University and many others have contributed enhancements to help make Maui what it is today.

"We want to thank contributors for making Maui the popular cluster scheduling tool it is today," Jackson said.

Five years of Moab

In 2001, Cluster Resources developed Moab to improve the cluster, grid and utility management experience, working around various limitations in Maui to add more powerful management tools and simpler end-user tools. Moab's new architecture was an improvement from Maui in its improved availability and reliability, as well as its ability to scale to larger systems, more complex problems and multiple clusters. Moab's improved architecture was no longer limited to a single compute resource manager, making it grid-ready. Further, Moab was designed with added intelligence and easy-to-use interfaces.

Moab has changed clustering with its user friendly tools and automation. The next-generation cluster management tool is more reliable and its flexible architecture and intelligent scheduling engine decrease cluster downtime. Moab includes graphical management and end-user tools, making cluster management simple for all skill levels of cluster users and administrators. Moab is used on a wide variety of systems throughout the world, including CERN, the world's largest data center, TeraGrid, the world's largest grid, and multiple high-profile clusters from organizations such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NCSA and many others.

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