Supercomputer operating system: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Use of Operative System by type of extremely powerful computer}}

A '''supercomputer operating system''' is an [[operating system]] intended for [[supercomputer]]s. Since the end of the 20th century, supercomputer operating systems have undergone major transformations, as fundamental changes have occurred in [[supercomputer architecture]].<ref name=Padua426 /> While early operating systems were custom tailored to each supercomputer to gain speed, the trend has been moving away from in-house operating systems and toward some form of [[Linux]],<ref name=MacKenzie /> with it running all the supercomputers on the [[TOP500]] list in November 2017. In 2021, top 10 computers run for instance [[Red Hat Enterprise Linux]] (RHEL), or some variant of it or other [[Linux distribution]] e.g. [[Ubuntu]].

Given that modern [[massively parallel]] supercomputers typically separate computations from other services by using multiple types of [[Locale (computer hardware)|nodes]], they usually run different operating systems on different nodes, e.g., using a small and efficient [[lightweight kernel operating system|lightweight kernel]] such as [[CNK operating system|Compute Node Kernel]] (CNK) or [[Compute Node Linux]] (CNL) on compute nodes, but a larger system such as a Linux-derivative distribution on server and [[input/output]] (I/O) nodes.<ref name=EuroPar2004/><ref name=Alam>''An Evaluation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Cray XT3'' by Sadaf R. Alam, et al., International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, February 2008 vol. 22 no. 1 52–80.</ref>

While in a traditional multi-user computer system [[job scheduling]] is in effect a [[task scheduling|tasking]] problem for processing and peripheral resources, in a massively parallel system, the job management system needs to manage the allocation of both computational and communication resources, as well as gracefully dealing with inevitable hardware failures when tens of thousands of processors are present.<ref name=Yariv >Open Job Management Architecture for the Blue Gene/L Supercomputer by Yariv Aridor et al in ''Job scheduling strategies for parallel processing'' by Dror G. Feitelson 2005 {{ISBN|978-3-540-31024-2}} pages 95–101.</ref>

Although most modern supercomputers use the Linux operating system,<ref>{{cite web |url=httphttps://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-continues-to-rule-supercomputers-7000016968/ |title=Linux continues to rule supercomputers |last=Vaughn-Nichols |first=Steven J. |date=June 18, 2013 |website=[[ZDNet]] |access-date=June 20, 2013}}</ref> each manufacturer has made its own specific changes to the Linux-derivative distribution they use, and no industry standard exists, partly because the differences in hardware architectures require changes to optimize the operating system to each hardware design.<ref name=Padua426 /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.top500.org/overtime/list/32/os |title=Top500 OS chart |publisher=Top500.org |access-date=2010-10-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305234455/http://www.top500.org/overtime/list/32/os |archive-date=2012-03-05 }}</ref>

[[File:Operating systems used on top 500 supercomputers.svg|thumb|right|Operating systems used on top 500 supercomputers]]

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==See also==

* [[Distributed operating system]]

* [[List of the top supercomputers in the United States]]

* [[Supercomputer architecture]]

* [[Usage share of operating systems#Supercomputers|Usage share of supercomputer operating systems]]