16.3.0 Simulations

• 16.3.1 Simulation Overview
• 16.3.2 Resource Traces
• 16.3.3 Workload Traces
• 16.3.4 Simulation Specific Configuration

Simulations allow organizations to evaluate many scenarios that could not be properly evaluated in the real world. In particular, these evaluations may be impossible due to time constraints, budgetary or man-power limitations, hardware availability, or may even be impossible due to policy issues.

Figure 1: Traditional TORQUE/Moab setup.		Figure 2: Moab simulation setup.

In such cases, simulation can help answer questions in countless scenarios and provide information 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?