HP XC System 3.x Software - Manual (Page 20)

Table 1-1 Determining the Node Platform
Partial Output of /proc/cpuinfo Platform
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 3
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CP3000
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 5
model name : AMD Opteron(tm) CP4000
processor : 0
vendor : GenuineIntel
arch : IA-64
family : Itanium 2
model : 1 CP6000
Note
The /proc/cpuinfo file is dynamic.
Node Specialization
The HP XC system is implemented as a sea-of-nodes. Each node in the system contains the same software
image on its local disk. There are two types of nodes in the system — a head node and client nodes.
head node
The node that is installed with the HP XC system software first — it is used to generate
other HP XC (client) nodes. The head node is generally of interest only to the administrator
of the HP XC system.
client nodes All the other the nodes that make up the system. They are replicated from the head node
and are usually given one or more specialized roles to perform various system functions,
such as logging into the system or running jobs.
The HP XC system allows for the specialization of client nodes to enable efficient and flexible distribution of
the workload. Nodes can be assigned one or more specialized roles that determine how a particular node
is used and what system services it provides. Of the many different roles that can be assigned to a client
node, the following roles contain services that are of special interest to the general user:
login role
The role most visible to users is on nodes that have the login role. Nodes with the login
role are where you log in and interact with the system to perform various tasks. For
example, once logged in to a node with login role, you can execute commands, build
applications, or submit jobs to compute nodes for execution. There can be one or several
nodes with the login role in an HP XC system, depending upon cluster size and
requirements. Nodes with the login role are a part of the Linux Virtual Server ring, which
distributes login requests from users. A node with the login role is referred to as a login
node in this manual.
compute role The compute role is assigned to nodes where jobs are to be distributed and run. Although
all nodes in the HP XC system are capable of carrying out computations, the nodes with
the compute role are the primary nodes used to run jobs. Nodes with the compute role
become a part of the resource pool used by LSF-HPC and SLURM, which manage and
distribute the job workload. Jobs that are submitted to compute nodes must be launched
from nodes with the login role. Nodes with the compute role are referred to as compute
nodes in this manual.
Storage and I/O
The HP XC system supports both shared (global) and private (local) disks and file systems. Shared file systems
can be mounted on all the other nodes by means of Lustre or NFS. This gives users a single view of all the
shared data on disks attached to the HP XC system.
20 Overview of the User Environment