Developing virtual clusters for high performance computing using OpenNebula

Abstract

High performance computing cluster kits such as the Rocks Cluster Distribution ("Rocks") and OSCAR were developed to simplify the process of installing, configuring, and managing commodity-based clusters. The recent emergence of virtualization technologies and IaaS cloud computing systems, such as OpenNebula and NIMBUS, have now greatly simplified the process of creating, deploying, and managing dozens to thousands of virtual machine images running on a collection of physical servers. For a graduate course in high performance computing systems, we are using the KVM virtualization system with OpenNebula to create virtual high performance computing systems. In this paper, we describe our experiences in investigating alternatives to OSCAR and Rocks to develop a virtual high performance computing clustering environment built on KVM and OpenNebula. We believe our experiences and results will be useful for other educators seeking to efficiently use limited physical hardware resources to develop an effective course in high performance computing systems. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.