openMosix, past present and Future.

The openMosix software package turns networked computers running GNU/Linux into a cluster. It automatically balances the load between different nodes of the cluster, and nodes can join or leave the running cluster without disruption of the service. The load is spread out among nodes according to their connection and CPU speeds. Since openMosix is part of the kernel and maintains full compatibility with Linux, a user's programs, files, and other resources will all work as before without any further changes. The casual user will not notice the difference between a Linux and an openMosix system. To her, the whole cluster will function as one (fast) GNU/Linux system. openMosix is a Linux-kernel patch which provides full compatibility with standard Linux for IA32-compatible platforms. The internal load-balancing algorithm transparently migrates processes to other cluster members. The advantage is a better load-sharing between the nodes. The cluster itself tries to optimize utilization at any time (of course the sysadmin can affect the automatic load-balancing by manual configuration during runtime). This transparent process-migration feature makes the whole cluster look like a BIG SMP-system with as many processors as available cluster-nodes (of course multiplied with X for X-processor systems such as dual/quad systems and so on). openMosix also provides a powerful optimized File System (oMFS) for HPC-applications, which unlike NFS provides cache, time stamp and link consistency. With openMosix you can start a process on one machine and find out it actually runs on another machine in the cluster. Each process has its own Unique Home Node (UHN) where it gets created. Migration means that a process is splitted in 2 parts, a user part and a system part. The user part will be moved to a remote node while the system part will stay on the UHN. This system-part is sometimes called the deputy process: this process takes care of resolving most of the system calls. openMosix takes care of the communication between these 2 processes. Recent improvements in openMosix, contain the initial implementation of Shared Memory Migration, CheckPointing Support, LoadLimitation, Autodiscovery tools, the General openMosix daemon and lots more.

Kris Buytaert is a Linux and Open Source Consultant operating in the Benelux. He has consulting and development experience with multiple enterprise level clients and government agencies. Next to his high level technical experience he is a team leader who likes to deliver his projects in time. He is a contributor to the Linux Documentation Project and author of different technical publications. Kris currently maintains the openMosix HOWTO.

Matthias Rechenburg is the author of openMosixview, openMosixAPI, and the openMosix Stress-Test. He is contributor to many openMosix related projects and a frequent contributor to the Mailing Lists as well. In a previous life Matthias worked for T-Mobile as a system administrator. He currently lives in Bonn, Germany, working as a freelancer for Qlusters where he does, what needs to be done, R&D, development, testing, Q&A and more