Multi-node Licensing

Tech-X provides three types of multi-node licensing schemes:

A node-locked license allows jobs to float across any of the licensed nodes in the group of interconnected licensed nodes.

The nodes licensed by a node-locked license must share a common file system and not be managed by a queuing system.

The license for the group of nodes is keyed to the MAC addresses of the group (or subgroup) of interconnected nodes. Tech-X generates a node-locked license based on the MAC addresses of each of the to-be-licensed nodes.

To qualify for a node-locked license, each node within the group to be licensed must be able to determine its own hardware (MAC) address and host name.

Node-locked License Example

Consider two 8-core machines, networked together, sharing a common filesystem but not served by a queueing system. A customer may purchase a 12-core node-locked license containing the MAC addresses of these two machines.  Such a license would enable the customer to run jobs totaling 12 cores on both of these machines such as any one of the following:

  • a 12-core job that spans both machines
  • one 6-core job on each machine
  • a 4-core job on one machine along with an 8-core job on the other machine
  • any combination such that no more than 12 cores are being used simultaneously

A fixed-node cluster license allows jobs to float across any of the specifically licensed nodes in a group of interconnected nodes. A job cannot float to an interconnected node that has not been included in the fixed-node cluster license as a licensed node.

The nodes licensed by a fixed-node cluster license must share a common file system and be managed by a single, common queuing system.

The fixed-node cluster license is keyed to the MAC addresses of the group (or subgroup) of specified interconnected nodes. Tech-X generates a fixed-node cluster license based on the customer-specified list of MAC addresses for each node.

To qualify for a fixed-node cluster license:

  • Each node to be licensed within the cluster must be able to determine its own hardware (MAC) address and host name.
  • A method to determine the list of compute nodes from the queuing system must be available to each compute node to be licensed.

 

Fixed-node Cluster License Example

Consider a cluster of eight nodes with each node having 8 cores (for a total of 64 cores), sharing a common filesystem, and served by a common queuing system. A customer may purchase, for example, a 24-core cluster license containing the MAC addresses of each of the eight nodes. Such a license would enable the customer to use up to 24 of the 64 cores in any configuration.  In this case, the customer may run jobs such as the following:

  • three 8-core jobs on any three nodes
  • a single 24-core job that spans three (or more) nodes

A dynamic cluster license allows jobs to float across any of the nodes in a group of interconnected nodes.

The nodes licensed by a dynamic cluster license must share a common file system and be managed by a single, common queuing system.

A dynamic cluster license scheme enables the user to dynamically adjust the size of the cluster after the cluster is licensed.

The customer is not required to identify each node to be included in the dynamic cluster license by MAC address and host name in advance of the license being issued.

To qualify for a dynamic cluster license, the compute nodes must be able to remotely connect to each other (e.g., via ssh or rsh).

To enable the number of nodes in the collection of nodes (cluster) to be increased or decreased as required, the dynamic cluster license is validated when the job is run according to the following three criteria:

  • (A) Any one of the job nodes is licensed or (B) one or more job nodes can reach one of the licensed nodes and can validate that node's license.
  • All of nodes on which the job is running can detect the shared filesystem.
  • All of the nodes on which the job is running are present in the nodes list managed by the queuing system.

 

Dynamic Cluster License Example

Consider a cluster of 128 nodes, in which each node has 8 cores. A customer may purchase a 64-core dynamic cluster license, which would contain MAC addresses and hostnames of each of the 128 nodes. Similar to the fixed-node cluster license, the customer may run any combination of jobs on any of these 128 nodes as long as the total number of cores in use does not exceed 64.

Should the cluster grow in the future, the customer need not request a new license to include the new nodes. If the customer runs a job solely on newly-added nodes (i.e., those nodes that do not appear in the license), the license manager will attempt to contact one of the nodes that does appear in the license.  The run will proceed if the license manager is able to reach a licensed node and verify that the licensed node meets both of the following conditions:

  • shares a filesystem with the unlicensed node
  • is served by the same queuing system as the unlicensed node

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