Marc Fiuczynski Princeton University Marco Yuen University of Victoria PlanetLab & Clusters

2 Benefits of Clusters to PlanetLab  CYCLES: more compute resources for public PlanetLab  Easier to convince folks to commit machines on a short term basis vs. permanently to PlanetLab  FEDERATION: more clusters than private PlanetLabs to peer w/  Better way to evaluate federation problem space—e.g., expose clusters as Management Authority (MA) or combined MA and Slice Authority (SA)  SIMULATION: small-scale test bed for PlanetLab Services  Alternative way to doing “PlanetLab in Emulab”

3 Benefits of PlanetLab to Clusters  VIRTUALIZATION/SLICES: eases cluster management  Empowers the cluster user & cluster administrator  Easier to run cluster software stacks side-by-side in slices  Better resource isolation on single node  FEDERATION: eases sharing of cluster resources among sites  Slices are a proven model for addressing/sharing compute resources hosted at different institution PlanetLab Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) Node Mgr Owner VM GLOBUS VM Sun GE VM Intel VM MPI x VM MPI y NODE

4 Many cluster packages out there… … we started with Rocks?!  Rocks:  Thousands of clusters worldwide  Used by Scientists, Wall Street, …  Interesting “software distribution” model  Commercially support & sold (platform.com/HP)  High visibility within Cluster community  Open Source similar to PlanetLab  Active community, well supported & funded  Active development to enhance base architecture

MyPLC & Rocks Integration

Rocks Extended Rocks API Extended MyPLC API Node Registrar Network Topology Manager MyPLC WEB GUI AdmAddNode AdmGetNodes AdmDeleteNode AdmUpdateNodeNetwork Bridge Design

Usage Scenarios  Manage a single cluster  Single Site; Single Owner  Status: works today  Manage multiple clusters  Multiple Sites; Single Owner  Status: testing  Federated Clusters  Multiple Sites; Multiple Owners  Status: awaiting federation API spec

Summary: Combing PL & Clusters  Interesting exercise in extending myPLC  Customization by overriding myPLC API  myPLC API plug-in or proxy  Release scheduled for early/mid summer  Earlier for close collaborators  20 node Princeton in June  AUP = planet-lab.org  Hosting requirement = planet-lab.org

Rocks ‘n’ Roll  Roll is a customized distribution  Convenient to deploy new software packages  Rolls: Globus, PBS, SGE, Condor, etc...  Commercial companies providing custom rolls and technical support.

10 Security Issues  Clusters usually are behind a firewall  sometimes in private LAN  Sometimes have full access to site internal resources  Sites do not like to let others inside  Need to protect sites from PlanetLab  Is existing scheme – PlanetFlow – sufficient?  Approach: Leverage VLANs to isolate PlanetLab  Use smart switch to put PL nodes on inside/outside of Firewall  PlanetLab Nodes on separate VLAN  Each Slice on unique VLAN