PBS x SGE comparison?

[hanzl at noel.feld.cvut.cz]

> > Is there a documented scheduler interface?
>
> http://gridengine.sunsource.net/unbranded-source/browse/~checkout~/gridengine/source/daemons/schedd/schedd.html?content-type=text/html

Oh thanks. SGE really starts to look worth some effort.

> SGE has a more feature-rich scheduler:
> 1. Share tree
> 2. Functional
> 3. Deadline
> 4. Override

Manuals say that the "Enterprise Edition" can do that. I somehow
supposed this does not apply to the opensource SGE version. But maybe
I am wrong and this is just a relict of the non-opensource history and
all I have to do to get the "Enterprise Edition" features is to switch
the mode in the text config file?

   * * *

To answer some of my own :) original questions about PBSxSGE - I got
some initial amateur impression of both:

 - OpenPBS installed easily from rpm, I just had to start it (after
reboot it starts itself), MAUI installed easily from rpm, so far
they probably do not know about each other.

 - SGE installed easily from tars using install script, I did
test instalation in my user directory (cool option, one could even
have several instalations for tests)

 - SGE GUI tool qmon is a nice way to get basic orientation in
things. Even anti-GUI radical as I am can enjoy it. I printed, bound
and studied all (good) manuals, but qmon helps. Sometimes it crashes,
I guess due to Motif toolkit? (I newer saw debugged Motif program,
including one my own. Decent modern toolkit would help I guess.)

 - PBS xpbs+xpbsmon uses my favorite tcl/tk but offers nearly nothing
compared to qmon. Not a way to learn. (I did not try to install www
GUI which also exists - did not want to configure Apache.)

(I still have no working batch system with backfill, I will continue my
effort on both fronts...)

Alltogether, PBS might be more mature but SGE seemes easier to get
into. I would like our students to be able to install batch system on
their home computers for tests and learning (while also working on our
cluster), so this means plus for SGE.

My result so far: Only PBS with MAUI and www GUI would probably beat SGE,
but the 3-component instalation hassle might be too big.


(Months ago I decided I will no longer maintain my few hundreds
lines of scripts used to monitor our Beowulf and do batch
scheduling. I thought I will easily find a general
replacement. Probably I was seriously wrong - I have many megabytes of
code, five centimeters of manuals and no working system doing the job
better. For sure I missed something important...)

Regards

Vaclav