Subject: Background Priority

From: "Dr. Walter J. Stevens" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 08:33:28 -0500 (EST)

Some time ago I posted a question to the list about executing
jobs in the background on SGI and IBM workstations.  I was
interested in execution priorities that would allow a job to
soak-up unused machine cycles without interfering with foreground
or higher priority jobs.  The 'nice' command doesn't have enough
range.

Thanks to everyone who responded.  We haven't made much progress with
with IBM AIX.  Here is a summary of the responses:

-  Use 'npri' on the SGI workstations.
   eg. npri -h 150 <command>
   This works pretty well, but I haven't found an equivalent 
   command for IBM AIX.

-  Use NQS (Network Queuing System) to distribute load and
   the 'qdel -s' option to stop jobs during the day.
   This is not quite what we're looking for, since interactive
   and priority foreground use continue at all hours.

-  IBM RS/6000s do not timeshare well.
   This is true.  We usually run two jobs max.  However, a 'sponge'
   priority for deep background execution isn't really timesharing.

-  Try 'Batch 4.0' for SGI which is available from Scott Presnell.
   Contact him at [email-masked].
   Free for academics and gov. but need license.
   Docs and man pages available  (FTP 128.218.21.42).
   We haven't tried this yet, but it does have provisions for
   giving high priority to active console users.  Looks interesting.

-  Try the commercial package 'nanny' from Terry Coley
   ([email-masked]).  This is an automatic priority
   controller that can give priority to active console users and
   can also balance the percentage of cycles given to each user.
   A free trial version is available at ftp.wag.caltech.edu:/pub/nanny.
   We are evaluating this one.  No conclusions so far.

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Dr. Walter J. Stevens                        
Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology
National Institute of Standards and Technology
and University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
9600 Gudelsky Drive
Rockville, MD  20850
Phone:  (301) 738-6264
FAX  :  (301) 738-6255
E-MAIL: [email-masked]
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