2 ms·

This reminds me a little bit of the idea of 'Single System Image'[1] computing. The idea, in abstract, is that you login to an environment where you can list r

by jka 7y ago

This reminds me a little bit of the idea of 'Single System Image'[1] computing. The idea, in abstract, is that you login to an environment where you can list running processes, perform filesystem I/O, list and create network connections, etc -- and any and all of these are in fact running across a cluster of distributed machines. (in a trivial case that cluster might be a single machine, in which case it's essentially no different to logging in to a standalone server) The wikipedia page referenced has a good description and a list of implementations; sadly the set of {has-recent-release && is-open-source && supports-process-migration} seems empty. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_system_image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_system_image

macintux 7y ago
That was the original concept that led Ian Murdock and John Hartman to found Progeny. The idea was that overnight, while no one was working at their desks, companies could reboot their Windows boxes into a SSI network of Linux nodes to run parallel compute tasks. Roughly, anyway, I got the sales pitch 20 years ago so my memories are fuzzy. I wasn’t remotely sold on it but was so anxious to work for a Linux R&D company in Indianapolis of all places that I accepted the job anyway. Sadly we didn’t get far on the concept before the dot-com crash. Absent more venture capital we pivoted to focus on something we could sell, Progeny Linux, and tried to turn that into a managed platform for companies who wanted to run Linux on their appliances.