Configuring Batch Monitoring for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 | ||
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Overview
This section provides an overview.
You may face very high time-consuming scenarios when running batch applications on large sets of data. For example, a clash calculation performed on a whole car can require several days of computation.
You can considerably reduce computation time by using the grid computing facilities offered by Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (CCS).
What Is Grid Computing?
This section explains what grid computing is.
Grid Computing is middleware linking together geographically dispersed computers to provide a virtual computational grid. The support of grid computing has now been integrated into the PLM infrastructure software.
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is the Microsoft Grid Computing offering and is a prerequisite for PLM infrastructure grid computing.
The batch infrastructure delegates batch submission to the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 allowing to load balance a batch on the best available computer.
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Architecture
This section explains what the WCC server architecture is.
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 provides a cost-effective and powerful solution that runs on x64-based computers and can be easily and quickly expanded and deployed using familiar tools and technologies.
The following diagram illustrates how the batch infrastructure is integrated into the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 environment:
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is a cluster of servers that includes a single head node and one or more compute nodes. A batch job is submitted to the head node for execution ON ONE COMPUTER in the cluster by the batch launcher. Consequently, CCS can be seen as a virtual machine comprising a grid of computers.
The choice of this node is made by an internal algorithm which is part of the grid middleware. The aim is to find the "best" available machine to run the job. This choice can be influenced by CCS configuration parameters.
In other words, the service rendered to the batch infrastructure by CCS can be seen as a specific type of load balancing.
Batch Launcher
The batch launcher is the Batch Monitor tool provided with the PLM infrastructure software. In grid computing node, the Batch Monitor tool user interface allows you to submit batch jobs to the grid for execution.