OSCAR Clusters

The Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR) is a cluster software stack providing a complete infrastructure for cluster computing. The OSCAR project started in April 2000 with its first public release a year later as a self-installing compilation of “best practices” for high-performance classic Beowulf cluster computing. Since its inception approximately three years ago, OSCAR has matured to include cluster installation, maintenance, and operation capabilities and as a result has become one of the most popular cluster computing packages worldwide. In the past year, OSCAR has begun to expand into other cluster paradigms including Thin OSCAR, a diskless cluster solution, and High∗Contact author: Thomas Naughton, <naughtont@ornl.gov> †This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. ‡Supported by a Department of Energy High Performance Computer Science Fellowship. §Supported by a grant from the Lilly Endowment. ¶Supported by Centre de Calcul Scientifique ‖Supported by Center for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology (CEnIT), Louisiana Tech University Availability OSCAR, embracing fault tolerant capabilities. This paper will cover the current status of OSCAR including its two latest invocations—Thin OSCAR and HighAvailability OSCAR—as well as the details of the individual component technology used in the creation of OSCAR.