Glossary

The half (branch) of the administration network that contains all of the general-purpose administration ports to the nodes of the HP XC system.

The private network within the HP XC system that is used for administrative operations.

An association of two individual nodes so that one node acts as the first server and the other node acts as the second server of a service.

A software product that enables system services to continue running if a hardware or software failure occurs by failing over the service to the other node in an availability set.

The collection of files and directories that represents the common files and configuration data that are applied to all nodes in an HP XC system.

A component of the administration network. A switch that is uplinked to the root switch and receives physical connections from multiple nodes.

A set of independent computers combined into a unified system through system software and networking technologies.

The external cluster host name supported by LVS, which enables inbound connections without having to know individual nodes names to connect and log in to the HP XC system.

Configuration and management database. Constructed during HP XC system installation, the CMDB is a MySQL database that stores information about the nodes, the hardware and software configuration, and network connectivity. This database runs on the node that is assigned with the node_management role.

A node that is assigned only with the compute role and no other. Jobs are distributed to and run on nodes with the compute role; no other services run on a compute node.

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A component of the administration network. The half (branch) of the administration network that contains all of the console ports of the nodes of the HP XC system. This branch is established as a separate branch to enable some level of partitioning of the administration network to support specific security needs.

Dynamic Host Control Protocol. A protocol that dynamically allocates IP addresses to computers on a local area network.

Extensible Firmware Interface. Defines a model for the interface between operating systems and Itanium-based platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables that contain platform-related information, plus boot and run-time service calls that are available to the operating system and its loader. Together, these provide a standard environment for booting an operating system and running preboot applications.

The hardware and software infrastructure that houses HP BladeSystem servers.

A node that is connected to a network external to the HP XC system.

An LSF job-scheduling policy that specifies how resources should be shared by competing users. A fairshare policy defines the order in which LSF attempts to place jobs that are in a queue or a host partition.

First-come, first-served. An LSF job-scheduling policy that specifies that jobs are dispatched according to their order in a queue, which is determined by job priority, not by order of submission to the queue.

Storage within the HP XC system that is available to all of the nodes in the system. Also known as local storage.

The node from which a standard file system image is created. The golden image is distributed by the image server. In a standard HP XC installation, the head node acts as the image server and golden client.

A collection of files, created from the golden client file system that are distributed to one or more client systems. Specific files on the golden client may be excluded from the golden image if they are not appropriate for replication.

The collection of directories and files that represents all of the software and configuration data of an HP XC system. The software for any and all nodes of an HP XC system can be produced solely by the use of this collection of directories and files.

The single node that is the basis for software installation, system configuration, and administrative functions in an HP XC system. There may be another node that can provide a failover function for the head node, but HP XC system has only one head node at any one time.

The name given to a computer. Lowercase and uppercase letters (a–z and A–Z), numbers (0–9), periods, and dashes are permitted in host names. Valid host names contain from 2 to 63 characters, with the first character being a letter.

A node that has more storage available than the majority of server nodes in an HP XC system. This storage is frequently externally connected storage, for example, SAN attached storage. When configured properly, an I/O server node makes the additional storage available as global storage within the HP XC system.

Integrated Lights Out. A self-contained hardware technology available on CP3000 and CP4000 cluster platform hardware models that enables remote management of any node within a system.

The next generation of iLO that provides full remote graphics console access and remote virtual media.

A node specifically designated to hold images that will be distributed to one or more client systems. In a standard HP XC installation, the head node acts as the image server and golden client.

A service availability infrastructure that is built into the HP XC system software to enable an availability tool to fail over a subset of eligible services to nodes that have been designated as a second server of the service

A hardware component that provides high-speed connectivity between the nodes in the HP XC system. It is used for message passing and remote memory access capabilities for parallel applications.

A module in an HP BladeSystem server. The interconnect module provides the Physical I/O ports for the server blades and can be either a switch, with connections to each of the server blades and some number of external ports, it can be or a pass-through module, with individual external ports for each of the server blades.

The private network within the HP XC system that is used primarily for user file access and for communications within applications.

A unique 32-bit number that identifies a host's connection to an Internet network. An Internet address is commonly represented as a network number and a host number and takes a form similar to the following: 192.0.2.0.

Intelligent Platform Management Interface. A self-contained hardware technology available on HP ProLiant DL145 servers that enables remote management of any node within a system.

HP IT Resource Center. The HP corporate web page where software patches are made available. The web address is http://www.itrc.hp.com. To download patches from this web page, you must register as an Americas/Asia Pacific or European customer.

A file containing the names of multiple executables that are to be launched simultaneously by a single command.

Storage that is available or accessible from one node in the HP XC system.

The node on which LSF runs. A user's job is submitted to the LSF execution host. Jobs are launched from the LSF execution host and are executed on one or more compute nodes.

The overall LSF coordinator for the system. The master load information manager (LIM) and master batch daemon (mbatchd) run on the LSF master host. Each system has one master host to do all job scheduling and dispatch. If the master host goes down, another LSF server in the system becomes the master host.

Load Sharing Facility for High Performance Computing integrated with SLURM. The batch system resource manager on an HP XC system that is integrated with SLURM. LSF-HPC with SLURM places a job in a queue and allows it to run when the necessary resources become available. LSF-HPC with SLURM manages just one resource: the total number of processors designated for batch processing.

LSF-HPC with SLURM can also run interactive batch jobs and interactive jobs. An LSF interactive batch job allows you to interact with the application while still taking advantage of LSF-HPC with SLURM scheduling policies and features. An LSF-HPC with SLURM interactive job is run without using LSF-HPC with SLURM batch processing features but is dispatched immediately by LSF-HPC with SLURM on the LSF execution host.

Linux Virtual Server. Provides a centralized login capability for system users. LVS handles incoming login requests and directs them to a node with a login role.

An optional integrated system that uses chilled water technology to triple the standard cooling capacity of a single rack. This system helps take the heat out of high-density deployments of servers and blades, enabling greater densities in data centers.

A package that provides for the dynamic modification of a user's environment by means of modulefiles.

Contains information that alters or sets shell environment variables, such as PATH and MANPATH. Modulefiles enable various functions to start and operate properly.

Management Processor. Controls the system console, reset, and power management functions on HP Integrity servers.

Message Passing Interface. A library specification for message passing, proposed as a standard by a broadly based committee of vendors, implementors, and users.

A relational database system developed by MySQL AB that is used in HP XC systems to store and track system configuration information.

Network Address Translation. A mechanism that provides a mapping (or transformation) of addresses from one network to another. This enables external access of a machine on one LAN that has the same IP address as a machine on another LAN, by mapping the LAN address of the two machines to different external IP addresses.

Network Information Services. A mechanism that enables centralization of common data that is pertinent across multiple machines in a network. The data is collected in a domain, within which it is accessible and relevant. The most common use of NIS is to maintain user account information across a set of networked hosts.

Any system that queries NIS servers for NIS database information. Clients do not store and maintain copies of the NIS maps locally for their domain.

A system that stores the master copy of the NIS database files, or maps, for the domain in the /var/yp/DOMAIN directory and propagates them at regular intervals to the slave servers. Only the master maps can be modified. Each domain can have only one master server.

A system that obtains and stores copies of the master server's NIS maps. These maps are updated periodically over the network. If the master server is unavailable, the slave servers continue to make the NIS maps available to client systems. Each domain can have multiple slave servers distributed throughout the network.

The enclosure management hardware, software, and firmware that is used to support all of the managed devices contained within the HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosure.

An application that uses a distributed programming model and can run on multiple processors. An HP XC MPI application is a parallel application. That is, all interprocessor communication within an HP XC parallel application is performed through calls to the MPI message passing library.

Preboot Execution Environment. A standard client/server interface that enables networked computers that are not yet installed with an operating system to be configured and booted remotely. PXE booting is configured at the BIOS level.

Nodes with this role manage the allocation of resources to user applications.

HP Remote Graphics Software. A utility that enables remote access and sharing of a graphics workstation desktop.

A set of services that are assigned to a node.

A component of the administration network. The top switch in the administration network; it may be a logical network switch comprised of multiple hardware switches. The Root Console Switch is connected to the Root Administration Switch.

A node within an HP XC system that is connected directly to the Root Administration Switch.

Red Hat Package Manager.

1. A utility that is used for software package management on a Linux operating system, most notably to install and remove software packages.

2. A software package that is capable of being installed or removed with the RPM software package management utility.

A command or user program that does not use any distributed shared-memory form of parallelism. A serial application is basically a single-processor application that has no communication library calls (for example, MPI, PVM, GM, or Portals).

An example of a serial application is a standard Linux command, such as the ls command. Another example of a serial application is a program that has been built on a Linux system that is binary compatible with the HP XC environment, but does not contain any of the HP XC infrastructure libraries.

One of the modules of an HP BladeSystem. The server blade is the compute module consisting of the CPU, memory, I/O modules and other supporting hardware. Server blades do not contain their own physical I/O ports, power supplies, or cooling.

The node on which the optional backup slurmctld daemon runs. On SLURM failover, this node becomes the SLURM master controller.

The node on which the slurmctld daemon runs.

Symmetric multiprocessing. A system with two or more CPUs that share equal (symmetric) access to all of the facilities of a computer system, such as the memory and I/O subsystems. In an HP XC system, the use of SMP technology increases the number of CPUs (amount of computational power) available per unit of space.

Secure Shell. A shell program for logging in to and executing commands on a remote computer. It can provide secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network.

A workload manager for any kind of batch job. Standard LSF features comprehensive workload management policies in addition to simple first-come, first-serve scheduling (fairshare, preemption, backfill, advance reservation, service-level agreement, and so on). Standard LSF is suited for jobs that do not have complex parallel computational needs and is ideal for processing serial, single-process jobs. Standard LSF is not integrated with SLURM.

HP Scalable Visualization Array. A highly affordable, scalable, ready-to-run visualization solution that completes the HP Unified Cluster Portfolio's integration of computation, data management and visualization in a single, integrated cluster environment. The HP SVA solution adds high-performance HP workstations in building block configurations that combine with industry-standard visualization components. State-of-the-art industry standard and open source clustering, graphics, and networking technology are leveraged to reduce costs and enhance flexibility. The tight integration of scalable computation, data management and visualization enables the following: clustered parallel visualization applications with support for very large data sets, display of complex, high resolution images, including volume visualization, and real-time rendering with computational steering through closely coupled visualization, computation and data management.