Tycoon version 0.5.0 released
Kevin Lai
Hi all,
This is the official release announcement for version 0.5.0 of Tycoon.
Version 0.5.0 has been in the yum repository for a while, but I was
waiting until I had a chance to update the documentation.
I feel this release is a big step forward for Tycoon in terms of
usability and reliability. Looking forward, we really need more feedback
and community participation. Send to the mailing list and create tickets
for the direction that you want to see Tycoon take. Of course, patches
are always welcome.
Also, please spread the use of Tycoon in your organizations. The
infrastructure supports many more auctioneers and clients than we
currently have. More auctioneers and more users will provide more
opportunities for sharing and increase the network effect, improving
things for everyone.
Introduction
==================================================================
These are the release notes for version 0.5.0 of Tycoon. This version
consists of the work of several developers over three months and over
350 revisions. Contributors include Alvin AuYoung, Savio Fernandes,
Fernando R. Haro, Roman Kurakin, Kevin Lai, and Thomas E. Sandholm.
The changes in this version are focused on improving the usability,
reliability, and scalability of the system. The key new features:
1) improved the command line client by simplifying the bidding
syntax, improving error messages, and adding online help.
2) added network bandwidth allocation and improved memory allocation
to allow much higher utilization.
3) improved the scalability and flexbility of the Service Location
service.
The current plan in 2007 largely depends on what the user community is
interested in. The tentative roadmap http://tycoon.hpl.hp.com/roadmap
includes work on integrating with PlanetLab, improving the
documentation, adding support for Xen 3.0.3, porting to other Linux
distributions, and GUI work.
Upgrading
=====================================================================
Be sure to backup important data from inside your host accounts before
doing any upgrades. This version is mostly command line compatible
with earlier versions, but not protocol compatible. As a result, you
should upgrade your clients and resource providers at the same time.
Version 0.5.0 is in the Tycoon yum repository, so upgrade by doing
$ yum -y update
$ service tycoon_aucd restart
We have made every effort to automatically upgrade existing host
accounts. However, there may be situations where the new Auctioneer
fails at this. The least intrusive solution is to use "tycoon host
delete_account" to delete the problematic account and then "tycoon
host create_account" to re-create it. If that doesn't work, you may
have to stop the Auctioneer, "rm -fr /home/{username}", restart the
Auctioneer, and have users recreate their host accounts.
Remaining Issues
==============================================================
1) As mentioned earlier, this version is not network protocol
compatible with earlier versions, so you should try to upgrade
both your clients and resource providers at the same time.
Detailed Changes
==============================================================
1) Simplified Auctioneer installation. This allows admins to install
the auctioneer without having to edit grub.conf and tycoon
configuration files.
2) Improved error messages. Common error conditions now produce more
user-friendly error messages.
3) Improved documentation on command line syntax and options.
4) Online help system in the command line client. The client now
contains extensive self-documentation. Access it by doing "tycoon -h"
5) Simplified command line bidding syntax by using SI units. Users can
now ask for 10GB disk, etc.
6) Simplified duration syntax. Users can specify "1y" for 1 year
instead of 31536000 seconds.
7) Added work-conserving contingency scheduler. This allows a much higher
memory utilization.
8) Stamp out use of "UserName" in configuration files. This was a
relic from earlier Tycoon versions.
9) Added outgoing network bandwidth allocation. The work-conserving
outgoing network bandwidth allocator allows users to control the
amount of network bandwidth given to their virtual machines,
regardless of whether the traffic uses NAT, port-forwarding, or an
IP address.
10) Added incoming network bandwidth allocation. Due to limitations of
the Linux kernel, this is not work-conserving, but still allows
allocation of all incoming network traffic.
11) Add ability to limit all resource allocations. Auctioneer
administrators can now limit how much of each resource is
allocated for virtual machines and how much is reserved for the
tasks in the physical (including the auctioneer).
12) Add database backend to SLS. Using SQLite, the new SLS allows more
flexible and sophisticated queries that also save network
bandwidth. This allows the SLS to support a much larger number of
auctioneers and a higher query rate. In addition, the new SLS
keeps availability information to track auctioneer reliability.
13) Change to enhanced XML-RPC protocol. The new rpc protocol is pure
XML-RPC and allows much better cross-platform compatibility and
security. In addition, it is faster, produces smaller messages,
and is more robust to schema changes than the old protocol.
14) Grid broker enhancements, such as asynchronous scalable job
submission and collection, improved concurrency control in
job submissions, new job_budget command line to help budgeting
bag-of-task job submissions, more flexible XRSL independent
user job preference configuration, support for local grid jobs,
job snapshot cancellation support, automatic job output collection
before bid expiration, improved error handling and reportinag,
prepare phase token validation.
15) Fixes to make Tycoon client run on Windows. This is still
experimental.
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Kevin