16.0 Cluster Analysis, Testing, and Simulation
Moab has a number of unique features that allow site administrators to visualize current cluster behavior and performance, safely evaluate changes on production systems, and analyze probable future behaviors within a variety of environments.
These capabilities are enabled through a number of Moab facilities that may not appear to be closely related at first. However, taken together, these facilities allow organizations the ability to analyze their cluster without the losses associated with policy conflicts, unnecessary downtime, and faulty systems middleware.
Simulations allow organizations to evaluate many scenarios that could not be properly evaluated in real-world situations. In particular, these evaluations may be impossible due to time constraints, budgetary or personnel limitations, hardware availability, or even policy issues. In such cases, simulations provide information in countless scenarios and can help answer questions such as the following:
- What is the impact of additional hardware on cluster utilization?
- What delays to key projects can be expected with the addition of new users?
- How will new prioritization weights alter cycle distribution among existing workload?
- What total loss of compute resources will result from introducing a maintenance downtime?
- Are the benefits of cycle stealing from non-dedicated desktop systems worth the effort?
- How much will anticipated grid workload delay the average wait time of local jobs?