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Question:

How this is accomplished

Answer:

By a software layer that allows applications to run in remote computers as if they run locally.

Users can run their regular sequential and parallel applications as if they use one computer (node), while MOSIX automatically (and transparently) seek resources and migrate processes among nodes to improve the overall performance.

This is accomplished by on-line algorithms that monitor the state of the system-wide resources and the running processes, then, whenever appropriate, initiate process migration to:

  1. Balance the load;
  2. Move processes from slower to faster nodes;
  3. Move processes from nodes that run out of free memory;
  4. Preserve long-running guest processes when clusters are about to be disconnected from the multi-cluster.