Integration with the Resource Management System

Dynamic versus Delayed Accounting

Delayed Accounting

In the absence of a dynamic system, some sites enforce allocations by periodically (weekly or nightly) parsing resource manager job logs and then applying debits against the appropriate project accounts. Although Gold can easily support this type of system by the use of the qcharge command in post-processing scripts, this approach allows users or projects to use resources significantly beyond their designated allocation and generally suffers from stale accounting information.

Dynamic Accounting

Gold's design allows it to interact dynamically with your resource management system. Charges for resource utilization can be made immediately when the job finishes (or even incrementally throughout the job). Additionally, reservations can be issued at the start of a job to place a hold against the user's account, thereby ensuring that a job will only start if it has sufficient reserves to complete. The remainder of this document will describe the interactions for dynamic accounting.