History of MOSIX

Version 0

A research project on the benefits of process migration started in 1977. A prototype operating system kernel, based on Bell Lab's Unix 6 was developed and tests were performed on a PDP-11/45 and a diskless PDP-11/10 that were connected by parallel I/O.

This study demonstrated that even with slow communication links, it is possible to gain substantial performance improvements by migrating and running processes in remote nodes.

• Year (started/completed): 1977/79
• Name: UNIX with Satellite Processors.
• Machines: PDP-11/45 + PDP-11/10.
• Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 6.
• References:

1. Barak A., Shapir A., Steinberg G. and Karshmer A.I., A Modular, Distributed UNIX. Proc. 14-th Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Science, pp. 740-747, January 1981.
2. Barak A. and Shapir A., UNIX with satellite Processors. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 383-392, May 1980.

Version 1

• Year (started/completed): 1981/83
• Name: MOS
• Machines: PDP-11/45 + PDP-11/23
• Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 7
  
• References:

1. Barak A. and Shiloh A., A Distributed Load-balancing Policy for a Multicomputer. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 15, No. 9, pp. 901-913, Sept. 1985.
2. Barak A. and Litman A., MOS - A Multicomputer Distributed Operating System. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 15, No. 8, pp. 725-737, Aug. 1985.

Version 2

• Year (started/completed): 1983/84
• Name: MOS
• Machines: CADMUS/PCS MC68K
• Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 7 with some BSD 4.1 extensions
• References:

1. Barak A. and Paradise G. O., MOS - a Load Balancing UNIX. Proc. Autumn 86 EUUG Conf., pp. 273-280, Manchester, Sept. 1986.
2. Barak A. and Paradise G. O., MOS - Scaling Up UNIX. Proc. Summer 1986 USENIX Conf., pp. 414-418, Atlanta, GA, June 1986.

Version 3

• Year (started/completed): 1987/88
• Name: NSMOS
• Machines: NS32332
• Compatible with: AT&T Unix system V release 2
• References:

1. Barel A., NSMOS - MOS Port to the National's 32000 Family Architecture. Proc. 2nd Israel Conf. Computer Systems and Soft. Eng., Tel-Aviv, May 1987

Version 4

• Year (started/completed): 1988
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: VAX-780 + VAX-750
• Compatible with: AT&T Unix System V release 2

Version 5

• Year (started/completed): 1988/89
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: NS32532
• Compatible with: AT&T Unix System V release 2
• References:

1. Barak A., Guday S. and Wheeler R., The MOSIX Distributed Operating System, Load Balancing for UNIX. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 672, Springer-Verlag, May 1993.
2. Barak A. and Wheeler R., MOSIX: An Integrated Multiprocessor UNIX. Proc. Winter 1989 USENIX Conf., pp. 101-112, San Diego, CA, Feb. 1989.
3. Barak A., Shiloh A. and Wheeler R., Flood Prevention in the MOSIX Load-Balancing Scheme, IEEE-TCOS Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 24-27, Winter 1989.

Version 6

• Year (started/completed): 1991/93
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: 486/Pentium
• Compatible with: BSD/OS
• References:

1. Barak A. and La'adan O., The MOSIX Multicomputer Operating System for High Performance Cluster Computing. Journal of Future Generation Computer Systems, Vol. 13, No. 4-5, pp. 361-372, March 1998.
2. Barak A., Laden O. and Yarom Y., The NOW MOSIX and its Preemptive Process Migration Scheme. IEEE TCOS, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 5-11, Summer 1995.

Version 7

• Year (started/completed): 1998/99
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: LINUX 2.2
• References:

1. Amir Y., Awerbuch B., Barak A., Borgstrom R.S. and Keren A., An Opportunity Cost Approach for Job Assignment in a Scalable Computing Cluster. IEEE Tran. on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 11, No. 7, pp. 760-768, July 2000.
2. Amar L., Barak A., Eizenberg A. and Shiloh A.,. The MOSIX Scalable Cluster File Systems for LINUX, June 2000.
3. Barak A., La'adan O. and Shiloh A., Scalable Cluster Computing with MOSIX for LINUX. Proc. 5-th Annual Linux Expo, pp. 95-100, Raleigh, NC, May 1999.

Version 8

• Year (started/completed): 2000/01
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: LINUX 2.4
• References:

1. Amar L., Barak A. and Shiloh A., The MOSIX Direct File System Access Method for Supporting Scalable Cluster File Systems. Cluster Computing, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 141-150, April 2004.
2. Keren A. and Barak A., Opportunity Cost Algorithms for Reduction of I/O and Interprocess Communication Overhead in a Computing Cluster. IEEE Tran. Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 39-50, January 2003.
3. Amar L., Barak A. and Shiloh A., The MOSIX Parallel I/O System for Scalable I/O Performance. Proc. 14-th IASTED Int. Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems (PDCS 2002), pp. 495-500, Cambridge, MA, Nov. 2002.

Version 9

• Year (started/completed): 2003
• Name: MOSIX
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: LINUX 2.4
• References:

1. Barak A. and Drezner Z., Gossip-Based Distributed Algorithms for Estimating the Average Load of Scalable Computing Clusters and Grids. Proc. 2004 Int. Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA'04), Las Vegas, NV, June 2004

Version 10

• Year (started/completed): 2004/2006
• Name: MOSIX2
• Machines: x86
• Compatible with: Linux-2.6
• References:

1. Amar L., Barak A., Drezner Z. and Okun M., Randomized Gossip Algorithms for Maintaining a Distributed Bulletin Board with Guaranteed Age Properties, Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, InterScience, Wiley, March 2009.
2. Maoz T., Barak A. and Amar L., Combining Virtual Machine Migration with Process Migration for HPC on Multi-Clusters and Grids, IEEE Cluster 2008, Tsukuba, Sept. 2008.
3. Meiri E. and Barak A., Parallel Compression of Correlated Files, Proc. IEEE Cluster 2007, Austin, Sept. 2007.
4. Amar L., Stosser J., Barak A. and Neumann D., Economically Enhanced MOSIX for Market-based Scheduling in Grid OS, Workshop on Economic Models and Algorithms for Grid Systems (EAMGS 2007), the 8th IEEE/ACM Int. Conf. on Grid Computing (Grid 2007), Austin, Sept. 2007.
5. Amar L., Barak A., Levy E. and Okun M., An On-line Algorithm for Fair-Share Node Allocations in a Cluster. Proc. 7-th IEEE Int. Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid '07), pp. 83-91, Rio de Janeiro, May 2007.
6. Amar L., Barak A., Drezner Z. and Peer I., Gossip Algorithms for Maintaining a Distributed Bulletin Board with Guaranteed Age Properties, 2006.
7. Barak A., Shiloh A. and Amar L., An Organizational Grid of Federated MOSIX Clusters. Proc. 5-th IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and Grid (CCGrid '05), Cardiff, May 2005.