Boolean resources |
Resources that denote the availability of specific features |
Numerical resources |
Resources that take numerical values, such as all the load indices, number of processors on a host, or host CPU factor |
String resources |
Resources that take string values, such as host type, host model, host status |
Dynamic Resources |
Resources that change their values dynamically: host status and all the load indices. |
Static Resources |
Resources that do not change their values: all resources except for load indices or host status. |
External Resources |
Custom resources defined by user sites: external load indices and resources defined in the lsf.shared file (shared resources). |
Built-In Resources |
Resources that are always defined in LSF, such as load indices, number of CPUs, or total swap space. |
Host-Based Resources |
Resources that are not shared among hosts, but are tied to individual hosts, such as swap space, CPU, or memory. An application must run on a particular host to access the resources. Using up memory on one host does not affect the available memory on another host. |
Shared Resources |
Resources that are not associated with individual hosts in the same way, but are owned by the entire cluster, or a subset of hosts within the cluster, such as shared file systems. An application can access such a resource from any host which is configured to share it, but doing so affects its value as seen by other hosts. |
Boolean resources (for example, server to denote LSF server hosts) have a value of one if they are defined for a host, and zero if they are not defined for the host. Use Boolean resources to configure host attributes to be used in selecting hosts to run jobs. For example:
Machines may have different types and versions of operating systems.
Machines may play different roles in the system, such as file server or compute server.
Some machines may have special-purpose devices that are needed by some applications.
Certain software packages may be available only on some of the machines.
Specify a Boolean resource in a resource requirement selection string of a job to select only hosts that can run the job.
Some examples of Boolean resources:
Resource Name |
Describes |
Meaning of Example Name |
|---|---|---|
cs |
Role in cluster |
Compute server |
fs |
Role in cluster |
File server |
solaris |
Operating system |
Solaris operating system |
frame |
Available software |
FrameMaker license |
Shared resources are configured resources that are not tied to a specific host, but are associated with the entire cluster, or a specific subset of hosts within the cluster. For example:
Disk space on a file server which is mounted by several machines
The physical network connecting the hosts
LSF does not contain any built-in shared resources. All shared resources must be configured by the LSF administrator. A shared resource may be configured to be dynamic or static. In the preceding example, the total space on the shared disk may be static while the amount of space currently free is dynamic. A site may also configure the shared resource to report numeric, string, or Boolean values.
An application may use a shared resource by running on any host from which that resource is accessible. For example, in a cluster in which each host has a local disk but can also access a disk on a file server, the disk on the file server is a shared resource, and the local disk is a host-based resource. In contrast to host-based resources such as memory or swap space, using a shared resource from one machine affects the availability of that resource as seen by other machines. There is one value for the entire cluster which measures the utilization of the shared resource, but each host-based resource is measured separately.
The following restrictions apply to the use of shared resources in LSF products.
A shared resource cannot be used as a load threshold in the Hosts section of the lsf.cluster.cluster_name file.
A shared resource cannot be used in the loadSched/loadStop thresholds, or in the STOP_COND or RESUME_COND parameters in the queue definition in the lsb.queues file.