Marshalltown, Iowa – Mechdyne Corporation’s Software Division introduced Cluster Boss, a secure cluster administration tool that provides systems administrators with single-point control of all nodes of visualization clusters. The Windows-based administration tool includes the application resources to easily manage clusters of practically any size.
Mechdyne has implemented some of the world’s largest advanced visualization computer clusters for customers in government, commercial, and academic environments. The company developed Cluster Boss to meet its own requirements for secure administration at classified sites.
“Direct experience and input from our customers tells us that once a cluster exceeds a handful of separate nodes, management from a single master node improves efficiency and simply makes life easier for system administrators,” said Matt Szymanski, vice president of the Software Division at Mechdyne. “We’ve used it on systems ranging from less than ten and up to nearly one hundred nodes, including installations for CAVE and theatre visualization systems, as well as command-and-control environments.”
Built on the SSH (Secure Shell) protocol standardized by the IETF, Cluster Boss combines secure file transfer with ease-of-use and an extensible architecture that allows other utility applications to be added to its base set of capabilities. Cluster Boss functions include remote control of setup and configuration, system boot and shutdown, distribution and launch/termination of applications, and tools for logging system information from all nodes of the cluster.
Mechdyne has also released a utility for launching CAVELib-based and other graphics applications. Cluster Launcher recognizes the graphics cluster configuration of any immersive display environment and launches the graphics application across the cluster.
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