Scalable cluster computing with mosix for linux

Mosix is a software tool for supporting cluster computing. It consists of kernel-level, adaptive resource sharing algorithms that are geared for high performance, overhead-free scalability and ease-of-use of a scalable computing cluster. The core of the Mosix technology is the capability of multiple workstations and servers (nodes) to work cooperatively as if part of a single system. The algorithms of Mosix are designed to respond to variations in the resource usage among the nodes by migrating processes from one node to another, preemptively and transparently, for load-balancing and to prevent memory depletion at any node. Mosix is scalable and it attempts to improve the overall performance by dynamic distribution and redistribution of the workload and the resources among the nodes of a computing-cluster of any size. Mosix conveniently supports a multi-user time-sharing environment for the execution of both sequential and parallel tasks. So far Mosix was developed 7 times, for different version of Unix, BSD and most recently for Linux. This paper describes the 7-th version.