Recent Trends in Operating Systems and their Applicability to HPC∗†

In this paper we consider recent trends in operating systems and discuss their applicability to high performance computing systems. In particular, we will consider the relationship between lightweight kernels, hypervisors, microkernels, modular kernels, and approaches to building systems with a single system image. We then describe how the Catamount lightweight kernel can be extended to support the Xen hypervisor API. This will, in turn, support use of Linux on the compute nodes of a large scale parallel system while minimizing the effort needed to support both, a lightweight OS and a full-featured OS.

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