Production Experiences with the Cray-Enabled TORQUE Resource Manager

Abstract

High performance computing resources utilize batch systems to manage the user workload. Cray systems are uniquely different from typical clusters due to Cray’s Application Level Placement Scheduler (ALPS). ALPS manages binary transfer, job launch and monitoring, and error handling. Batch systems require special support to integrate with ALPS using an XML protocol called BASIL. Previous versions of Adaptive Computing’s TORQUE and Moab batch suite integrated with ALPS from within Moab, using PERL scripts to interface with BASIL. This would occasionally lead to problems when all the components would become unsynchronized. Version 4.1 of the TORQUE Resource Manager introduced new features that allow it to directly integrate with ALPS using BASIL. This paper describes production experiences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory using the new TORQUE software versions, as well as ongoing and future work to improve TORQUE.