Lightweight kernel operating system: Difference between revisions

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A [[massively parallel]] [[high-performance computing]] (HPC) system is particularly sensitive to [[operating system]] overhead. Traditional multi-purpose operating systems are designed to support a wide range of usage models and requirements. To support the range of needs, a large number of system processes are provided and are often inter-dependent on each other. The computing overhead of these processes leads to an unpredictable amount of processor time available to a parallel application. A very common [[parallel programming model]] is referred to as the [[bulk synchronous parallel]] model which often employs [[Message Passing Interface]] (MPI) for communication. The synchronization events are made at specific points in the application code. If one processor takes longer to reach that point than all the other processors, everyone must wait. The overall finish time is increased. Unpredictable operating system overhead is one significant reason a processor might take longer to reach the synchronization point than the others.

Custom '''Lightweightlightweight Kernelkernel''' (LWK) operating systems, currently used on some of the fastest computers in the world, help alleviate this problem. The [[IBM]] [[Blue Gene]] line of [[supercomputers]] runs various versions of [[CNK operating system]].<ref name=bgl-cnk>{{cite journal

| title = Designing a Highly-Scalable Operating System: The Blue Gene/L Story

| publisher = Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC’06)