openMosix is a modern OpenSource project which encourages a very active user community. All openMosix extensions are under the full GPLv2 license, the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2. The User-Space Tools were completely rewritten to provide this 100% GPL’d clustering solution. The project API is published, allowing openMosix to be an excellent platform for new applications.
“For thousands of users, openMosix provides a reliable, fast and cost-efficient clustering platform with users in life sciences, finance, industry, high-tech, research and government environments.†Moshe Bar
First year technical milestones include the addition of installation RPMs for Red Hat Linux, SuSE and Mandrake Linux(tm), node Auto Discovery, and the port of openMosix to the Intel(r) Itanium(tm) IA-64 Processor Family. Project plans for openMosix’ second year include porting to the 64-bit AMD Opteron(tm) processor, better integration with OpenAFS, the release of a first version of DSM, continued support of the latest Linux versions, plus tighter integration with Debian GNU/Linux, Gentoo Linux(tm), and SuSE.
openMosix is a Linux kernel extension for single-system image clustering. This kernel extension turns a network of ordinary IA-32 computers into a supercomputer for Linux applications.
Once you have installed openMosix, the nodes in the cluster start talking to one another and the cluster adapts itself to the workload. Processes originating from any one node, if that node is too busy compared to others, can migrate to any other node. openMosix continuously attempts to optimize the resource allocation.
This is achieved with a kernel patch for Linux, creating a reliable, fast and cost-efficient SSI clustering platform that is linearly scalable and adaptive. With openMosix’ Auto Discovery, a new node can be added while the cluster is running and the cluster will automatically begin to use the new resources.
There is no need to program applications specifically for openMosix. Since all openMosix extensions are inside the kernel, every Linux application automatically and transparently benefits from the distributed computing concept of openMosix. The cluster behaves much as does a Symmetric Multi-Processor, but this solution scales to well over a thousand nodes which can themselves be SMPs.
Dr. Moshe Bar leads openMosix’ international development team of volunteers. Projects using openMosix include astrophysics, bioinformatics, medical, and genone research in private, university, and government laboratories.
The openMosix project is hosted on SourceForge.net, which provides collaborative development web tools for the project. Downloads, documentation, and additional information are available from www.openMosix.org.
openMosix is a very highly regarded, high performance, low cost, flexible, and scaleable Cluster Computing System for Linux. openMosix integrates independent computers into a cluster, providing the user with what appears to be a single-machine Linux environment.
openMosix is Copyright (c) 2002,2003 Moshe Bar.
Linux is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds.
GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2, June 1991
AMD Opteron is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
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Link: openmosix
