Overlay File System for HPC Job Environment Deployment
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Solution Overview
Problem
In high-performance computing systems, users face significant burdens in manually configuring and managing execution environments for jobs, leading to inefficiencies and potential interference among users, especially with traditional methods and container-dependent approaches which incur high overhead and compromise user privacy.
Innovation Solution
A method utilizing an overlay file system to provide isolated, lightweight execution environments that are automatically deployed, allowing users to customize their environments independently without affecting others, with the job management system synchronizing user-defined dependencies to compute nodes, reducing user burden and maintaining low performance overhead.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users manually configure execution environments by copying libraries and dependencies to compute nodes, then the job can be executed with required dependencies, but the user burden increases significantly and system configuration chaos occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses copying by creating a copy of the user's execution environment (including libraries, dependencies, and configuration files) and deploying it to the compute node. This allows the user to maintain a clean, consistent environment without manually copying individual files, thereby reducing operation burden while ensuring reliable job execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-configuring the execution environment on the login node before job submission. The environment is prepared in advance with all necessary libraries and dependencies, and then automatically deployed to the compute node when the job is submitted, eliminating the need for manual configuration during job execution.
2Reliability
If users configure execution environments manually on compute nodes, then the job can run with required dependencies, but other users' access to the node is affected and user privacy cannot be protected
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by separating the execution environment into an isolated user space on the login node and a corresponding copied space on the compute node. This segmentation ensures that each user's environment configuration is independent and does not interfere with other users, while still providing reliable environment setup for job execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses copying to create an independent replica of the user's execution environment on the compute node. This copy is specific to each user and does not affect other users' environments, thereby protecting user privacy and preventing interference while ensuring reliable job execution.
3Productivity
If users encapsulate execution environment into container images, then deployment becomes faster and easier, but the user burden increases due to manual maintenance of container content and deployment operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses copying to automatically replicate the user's execution environment from the login node to the compute node without requiring container image encapsulation. This copying mechanism achieves fast deployment while eliminating the need for users to manually maintain container content, thereby improving productivity without increasing operation burden.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the environment configuration management from the user's manual operations and transfers it to the system's automatic copying mechanism. This extraction eliminates the need for users to manually maintain container images and perform deployment operations, while still achieving fast and efficient deployment.
4Object-affected harmful factors
If traditional container isolation technology is used, then user environments are isolated, but high performance overhead is incurred for running the job
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses copying to create a lightweight replica of the user's execution environment on the compute node without employing heavy container isolation technologies. This copying approach provides necessary environment isolation while minimizing performance overhead, as it avoids the resource consumption associated with traditional containerization isolation mechanisms.
Data Source
AI summary
A high-performance computing-oriented method for automatically deploying an execution environment along with a job, including: presetting isolated execution environments at nodes of a high-performance computing system; logging in an isolated execution environment of a login node; carrying out development and debugging on the job and configuration on a job execution environment at the login node, and issuing a job running request to a job management system; assigning compute nodes from the nodes of the high-performance computing system to the job of the user by the job management system, automatically deploying an file system of the user synchronously to the assigned compute nodes along with the job when the job is loaded, and running the job of the user by the corresponding compute nodes; and feeding results back to the login node of the user after running the job is completed, then clearing file systems.