Mosix Features and Other Resources
Mosix
can be used to build a scalable Web server farm running Apache on each node.
Mosix
is also appropriate for networks on which users perform many simultaneous tasks like heavy
compilations (e.g., rebuilding
compilers(.
In
general, applications with long execution times, like scientific or engineering
application, will benefit from Mosix .
Pro & Cons
Pros
o No extra packages or code changes required: to run in a Mosix cluster, there is no need to modify or to link applications with any library.
o Transparent process migration: no need to assign processes to different nodes - Mosix does it automatically. Just fork and forget, like in an SMP. The casual user will not notice the difference between Linux and Mosix. To him, the whole cluster will function as one (fast) GNU/Linux system.
o MFS: Unified view of all files in all the nodes of a Mosix cluster, as if they were all within a single file system.
o Nodes are their own server/client: decentralized control makes it more robust
against failure.
o Scalability:
nodes can be added/withdrawn at any time.
Cons
o O/S
Environment: Mosix was originally developed for BSD, but now Linux is its
exclusive development platform.
o Mosix
can only migrate processes: thread level parallelism support won’t benefit from process migration
feature (Java, for instance).
o Extra
overhead: in the execution of system calls, due to the deputy approach.
o
Processes using shared memory are not migrated.
o
Official
web-site for Mosix- http://www.mosix.org
o openMosix
Project - http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/
o The
Mosix HOWTO - http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Mosix-HOWTO/
o
http://www.gridcomputing.com/
o http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4546