MEDIA CONTACT: Ron Walli
Communications & Community Outreach
(865) 576-0226

OSCAR 2.2.1 released

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 22, 2003 -- The OSCAR working group is pleased to announce the release of version 2.2.1 of the Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR) toolkit.

The OSCAR toolkit is used to build, configure and manage clusters. Its primary objective is to make use of "best practices" for Cluster High Performance Computing (HPC). OSCAR enables a user to setup and maintain a cluster with the same software typically found on HPC Clusters, while greatly reducing the complexity of the installation and configuration process.

This release offers several enhancements; including improved support for IA-64 based systems (e.g. Itanium I, II). The base SystemImager tool of the System Installation Suite (SIS) was upgraded to v3.0. This upgrade adds a wealth of new functionality, including: modular kernel s upport, Gigabit Ethernet and USB keyboard support for autoinstall clients. The improved hardware detection allows nodes to automatically load necessary modules based on the target hardware. Also, the ability to set machines to initially network boot using PXE and then modify subsequent boots to use the local hard disk has been added.

There were several other package upgrades, including the Kernel_Picker tool, which assists with the selection of alternate kernel in OSCAR installations. The OSCAR DAtabase (ODA) and OSCAR Package Downloader (OPD) were enhanced to offer a more robust database and a remote package acquisition facility. The C3 power tools were updated, as was the LAM/MPI package.

In addition to package updates, the network collection facilities were enhanced. The ability to both import and export MAC addresses from/to a file has been added to assist those maintaining large clusters or who have this data available. Also, an auto-assign and auto-dhcpd configuration was added, which when coupled with the import facility speeds the node definition process and results in nodes starting the build process earlier.

The OPD tool allows for updated or "3rd party" packages to be obtained from remote OSCAR repositories. Several packages are available including the Ganglia system monitoring tool, the Clumon performance monitoring system and GM-oscar, a tool to configure Myrinet on OSCAR clusters.

The 2.2.1 releases offer full support for RedHat 7.2 & 7.3 and Mandrake 8.2. There is experimental support for RedHat 7.1 and Mandrake 9.0.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The OSCAR group would like to invite all interested users to attend the first annual OSCAR Symposium this May 11-14, 2003 in Sherbrooke, Canada. http://oscar2003.ccs.usherbrooke.ca/

The OSCAR working group is a consortium of industry, academic and research participants. Primary contributors are Bald Guy Software, Dell, IBM, Intel, Indiana University (IU), Intel, MSC.Software, National Computational Science Alliance (NCSA), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Sherbrooke University. OSCAR is the product of the OSCAR working group of the Open Cluster Group (OCG). OCG is dedicated to making cluster computing practical. These groups are open to all interested in participating.

Related resources:

OSCAR Working Group Homepage<
http://www.OpenClusterGroup.org/OSCAR

OSCAR Project Homepage
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oscar

Open Cluster Group Homepage
http://www.OpenClusterGroup.org

OSCAR Mailing Lists
User Questions: oscar-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Development: oscar-devel@lists.sourcefore.net

2003 OSCAR Symposium
May 11-14, Sherbrooke, Canada
http://oscar2003.ccs.usherbrooke.ca

ORNL is a Department of Energy multi-program research facility managed by UT-Battelle.