Difference between revisions of "History of MOSIX"

Revision as of 16:32, 1 June 2011

Version 0

A research project on process migration started in 1977. A prototype operating system kernel, based on Bell Lab's Unix 6 was developed and tests were performed on a PDP-11/45 and a diskless PDP-11/10 that were connected by parallel I/O.

This study demonstrated that even with slow communication links, it is possible to gain substantial performance improvements by migrating and running processes in remote nodes.

• Development (started/completed): 1977-79
• Name: UNIX with Satellite Processors.
• Machines: PDP-11/45 + PDP-11/10.
• Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 6.
• References:

1. A. Barak and A. Shapir, UNIX with satellite Processors. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 383-392, May 1980.
2. A. Barak, A. Shapir, G. Steinberg and A.I. Karshmer, A Modular, Distributed UNIX. Proc. 14-th Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Science, pp. 740-747, January 1981.

Version 1

• Development (started/completed): 1981-83
• Name: MOS
• Machines: PDP-11/45 + PDP-11/23
• Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 7
  
• References:

1. A. Barak and A. Litman, MOS - A Multicomputer Distributed Operating System. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 15, No. 8, pp. 725-737, Aug. 1985.
2. A. Barak and A. Shiloh, A Distributed Load-balancing Policy for a Multicomputer. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 15, No. 9, pp. 901-913, Sept. 1985.

Version 2

• Development(started/completed): 1983-84
• Name: MOS
• Machines: CADMUS/PCS MC68K
• Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 7 with some BSD 4.1 extensions
• References:

1. Barak A. and Paradise G. O., MOS - Scaling Up UNIX. Proc. Summer 1986 USENIX Conf., pp. 414-418, Atlanta, GA, June 1986.
2. Barak A. and Paradise G. O., MOS - a Load Balancing UNIX. Proc. Autumn 86 EUUG Conf., pp. 273-280, Manchester, Sept. 1986.
3. Barak A. and Malki D., Distributed Light Weight Processes in MOS, Proc. Autumn 88 EUUG Conf., pp. 335-343, Cascais, Oct. 1988

Version 3

• Development (started/completed): 1987-88
• Name: NSMOS
• Machines: NS32332
• Compatible with: AT&T Unix system V release 2
• Reference:

1. Barel A., NSMOS - MOS Port to the National's 32000 Family Architecture. Proc. 2nd Israel Conf. Computer Systems and Soft. Eng., Tel-Aviv, May 1987

Version 4

• Development (started/completed): 1988
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: VAX-780 + VAX-750
• Compatible with: AT&T Unix System V release 2

Version 5

• Development (started/completed): 1988-89
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: NS32532
• Compatible with: AT&T Unix System V release 2
• References:

1. Barak A. and Wheeler R., MOSIX: An Integrated Multiprocessor UNIX. Proc. Winter 1989 USENIX Conf., pp. 101-112, San Diego, CA, Feb. 1989.
2. Barak A., Shiloh A. and Wheeler R., Flood Prevention in the MOSIX Load-Balancing Scheme, IEEE-TCOS Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 24-27, Winter 1989.
3. Barak A., Guday S. and Wheeler R., The MOSIX Distributed Operating System, Load Balancing for UNIX. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 672, Springer-Verlag, May 1993.

Version 6

• Development (started/completed): 1991-93
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: 486/Pentium
• Compatible with: BSD/OS
• References:

1. Barak A. and Yarom Y., Transparent Process Migration in a Network of Workstations, Proc. Workshop on Distributed Algorithms and Systems, St. Malo, Oct. 1994.
2. A. Barak, O. La'adan and Y. Yarom, The NOW MOSIX and its Preemptive Process Migration Scheme, Bull. IEEE Tech. Committee on Operating Systems and Application Environments, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 5-11, Summer 1995.
3. Barak A. and La'adan O., Experience with a Scalable PC Cluster for HPC, Proc. Cluster Computing Conf. (CCC 97), Emory Univ., Atlanta, GA, March 1997.
4. Barak A. and Braverman A., Memory Ushering in a Scalable Computing Cluster, Microprocessors and Microsystems, Vol. 22, No. 3-4, pp. 175-182, Aug. 1998.
5. Barak A., Gilderman I. and Metrik I., Performance of the Communication Layers of TCP/IP with the Myrinet Gigabit LAN, Computer Communications, Vol. 22, No. 11, July 1999.

Version 7

• Development (started/completed): 1998-99
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: LINUX 2.2
• Reference:

1. Barak A., La'adan O. and Shiloh A., Scalable Cluster Computing with MOSIX for LINUX. Proc. 5-th Annual Linux Expo, pp. 95-100, Raleigh, NC, May 1999.

Version 8

• Development(started/completed): 2000-01
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: LINUX 2.4
• References:

1. Amar L., Barak A. and Shiloh A., The MOSIX Parallel I/O System for Scalable I/O Performance. Proc. 14-th IASTED Int. Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems (PDCS 2002), pp. 495-500, Cambridge, MA, Nov. 2002.

Version 9

• Development (started/completed): 2003
• Name: MOSIX (Version 1)
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: LINUX 2.4
• Reference:

1. Amar L., Barak A. and Shiloh A., The MOSIX Direct File System Access Method for Supporting Scalable Cluster File Systems. Cluster Computing, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 141-150, April 2004.

Version 10

• Development (started/completed): 2004-06
• Name: MOSIX (Version 2)
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: Linux-2.6
• References:

1. A. Barak, A. Shiloh and L. Amar, An Organizational Grid of Federated MOSIX Clusters. Proc. 5th IEEE Int. Symp. on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid'05), pp. 350-357, Cardiff, May 2005.
2. L. Amar, A. Barak, E. Levy and M. Okun, An On-line Algorithm for Fair-Share Node Allocations in a Cluster. Proc. 7th IEEE Int. Symp. on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid'07), pp. 83-91, Rio de Janeiro, May 2007.
3. E. Meiri and A. Barak, Parallel Compression of Correlated Files, IEEE Cluster 2007, pp.285-292, Austin, TX, Sept. 2007.
4. T. Maoz, A. Barak and L. Amar, Combining Virtual Machine Migration with Process Migration for HPC on Multi-Clusters and Grids, IEEE Cluster 2008, pp. 89-98, Tsukuba, Sept. 2008
5. L. Amar, A. Barak, Z. Drezner and M. Okun, Randomized Gossip Algorithms for Maintaining a Distributed Bulletin Board with Guaranteed Age Properties, Concurrency and Computation: Practice & Experience, Vol. 21, Issue 15, pp. 1907-1927, 2009.

MOSIX Reach the Clouds (MRC)

• Development (started/completed): 2008-09
• Name: MRC
• Machines: x86/i64
• Compatible with: Linux-2.6

MOSIX Virtual OpenCL (VCL) Cluster Platform

• Development (started): 2009
• Name: MOSIX VCL
• Machines: x86/i64 with GPU devices
• Compatible with: Linux-2.6 and OpenCL-1.1
• Reference:

1. A. Barak, T. Ben-Nun, E. Levy and A. Shiloh, A Package for OpenCL Based Heterogeneous Computing on Clusters with Many GPU Devices, Workshop on Parallel Programming and Applications on Accelerator Clusters (PPAAC), IEEE Cluster 2010, Crete, Sept. 2010.
2. A. Barak and A. Shiloh, The MOSIX Virtual OpenCL Cluster Platform for Concurrent GPU Computing, 2011.

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