The Laundromat Model for Autonomic Cluster Computing

Traditional High Performance Computing systems require extensive management and suffer from security and configuration problems. This paper presents a new clustermanagement system, called Evil Man, that aims at making clusters as secure and self-managing as possible. Evil Man is inspired by real-life Laundromats: All nodes in a cluster are configured with a minimal software base consisting of a Virtual Machine Monitor and a remote bootstrapping mechanism, and customers then buy access using a simple pre-paid token scheme. All necessary application software, including the operating system, is provided by the customer as a full Virtual Machine, and boot-strapped or migrated into the cluster. Technically, the core ingredients of Evil Man are a novel operating system Boot-strapping and Self-Migration mechanism, and a simple pre-paid Token Scheme on which all access control and accounting is based. Combined, these mechanisms create a simple, autonomous, secure, and highly flexible clust...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ICAC
• Authors: Jacob Gorm Hansen, Eske Christiansen, Eric Jul
• Keywords: Autonomic Computing, Evil Man, ICAC 2006, Operating System, Pre-paid Token Scheme