History of MOSIX  
History of MOSIX  

    Version 0

    A research project on process migration started in 1977. A prototype operating system, 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.

  • Development (started/completed): 1977-79
  • Name: UNIX with Satellite Processors
  • Configuration: PDP-11/45 + PDP-11/10
  • Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 6
  • References:
    • A. Barak and A. Shapir, UNIX with satellite Processors. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 383-392, May 1980.
    • A. Barak, A. Shapir, G. Steinberg and A.I. Karshmer, A Modular, Distributed UNIX. Proc. 14th Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Science, pp. 740-747, January 1981.

    Version 1

  • Development: 1981-83
  • Name: MOS
  • Configuration: PDP-11/45 + 4 PDP-11/23
  • Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 7
  • References:
    • A. Barak and A. Litman, MOS - A Multicomputer Distributed Operating System. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 15, No. 8, pp. 725-737, Aug. 1985.
    • A. Barak and A. Shiloh, A Distributed Load-balancing Policy for a Multicomputer. Software - Practice & Experience, Vol. 15, No. 9, pp. 901-913, Sept. 1985.

    Version 2

  • Development: 1983-84
  • Name: MOS
  • Configuration: 8 CADMUS/PCS MC68K connected by ProNet
  • Compatible with: Bell Lab's Unix 7 with some BSD 4.1 extensions
  • References:
    • A. Barak and O.G. Paradise, MOS - Scaling Up UNIX. Proc. Summer 1986 USENIX Conf., pp. 414-418, Atlanta, GA, June 1986.
    • A. Barak and O.G. Paradise, MOS - a Load Balancing UNIX. Proc. Autumn 86 EUUG Conf., pp. 273-280, Manchester, Sept. 1986.
    • A. Barak and D. Malki, Distributed Light Weight Processes in MOS, Proc. Autumn 88 EUUG Conf., pp. 335-343, Cascais, Oct. 1988.

    Version 3

  • Development: 1987-88
  • Name: NSMOS
  • Configuration: several NS32332 based computers
  • Compatible with: AT&T Unix system V release 2
  • Reference:
    • A. Barel, 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

  • Development: 1988
  • Name: MOSIX-1
  • Configuration: Cluster of VAX-780 and 4 VAX-750 connected by Ethernet
  • Compatible with: AT&T Unix System V release 2

    Version 5

  • Development: 1988-89
  • Name: MOSIX
  • Configuration: Cluster with 16 NS32532 computers connected by VMEbus and Pronet
  • Compatible with: AT&T Unix System V release 2
  • References:
    • A. Barak and R. Wheeler, MOSIX: An Integrated Multiprocessor UNIX. Proc. Winter 1989 USENIX Conf., pp. 101-112, San Diego, CA, Feb. 1989.
    • A. Barak, A. Shiloh and R. Wheeler, Flood Prevention in the MOSIX Load-Balancing Scheme, IEEE-TCOS Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 24-27, Winter 1989.
    • A. Barak, S. Guday and R. Wheeler, The MOSIX Distributed Operating System, Load Balancing for UNIX. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 672, Springer-Verlag, May 1993.

    Version 6

  • Development: 1991-93
  • Name: MOSIX
  • Configuration: Cluster with 8 486-SBC connected by Multibus II + 32 Pentium PCs connected by Myrinet
  • Compatible with: BSD/OS
  • References:
    • A. Barak and Y. Yarom, Transparent Process Migration in a Network of Workstations, Proc. Workshop on Distributed Algorithms and Systems, St. Malo, Oct. 1994.
    • A. Barak, O. La'adan and Y. Yarom, The NOW MOSIX and its Preemptive Process Migration Scheme, Bull. IEEE Tech. Committee on Operating Systems and Application Environments, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 5-11, Summer 1995.
    • A. Barak and O. La'adan, Experience with a Scalable PC Cluster for HPC, Proc. Cluster Computing Conf. (CCC 97), Emory Univ., Atlanta, GA, March 1997.
    • A. Barak and A. Braverman, Memory Ushering in a Scalable Computing Cluster, Microprocessors and Microsystems, Vol. 22, No. 3-4, pp. 175-182, Aug. 1998.
    • A. Barak, I. Gilderman and I. Metrik, Performance of the Communication Layers of TCP/IP with the Myrinet Gigabit LAN, Computer Communications, Vol. 22, No. 11, July 1999.

    Version 7

  • Development: 1998-99
  • Name: MOSIX-1 for Linux 2.2
  • Configuration: Cluster with 64 x86 PCs connected by Myrinet
  • Reference:
    • A. Barak, O. La'adan and A. Shiloh, Scalable Cluster Computing with MOSIX for LINUX. Proc. 5-th Annual Linux Expo, pp. 95-100, Raleigh, NC, May 1999.

    Version 8

  • Development: 2000-01
  • Name: MOSIX-1 for Linux 2.4
  • Configuration: Cluster with 96 x86 PCs connected by Myrinet
  • References:
    • L. Amar, A. Barak and A. Shiloh, 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

  • Development: 2003
  • Name: MOSIX-1 V9 for Linux 2.4
  • Configuration: Cluster with 100's x86 workstations and servers connected by 1Gb Ethernet
  • Reference:
    • A. Amar, A. Barak and A. Shiloh, The MOSIX Direct File System Access Method for Supporting Scalable Cluster File Systems. Cluster Computing, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 141-150, April 2004.

    Version 10

  • Development: 2004-06
  • Name: MOSIX-2 for Linux 2.6
  • Configuration: Cloud with 100's of x86 workstations and servers connected by 1Gb Ethernet
  • References:
    • A. Barak, A. Shiloh and L. Amar, An Organizational Grid of Federated MOSIX Clusters. Proc. 5th IEEE Int. Symp. on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid'05), pp. 350-357, Cardiff, May 2005.
    • L. Amar, A. Barak, E. Levy and M. Okun, An On-line Algorithm for Fair-Share Node Allocations in a Cluster. Proc. 7th IEEE Int. Symp. on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid'07), pp. 83-91, Rio de Janeiro, May 2007.
    • E. Meiri and A. Barak, Parallel Compression of Correlated Files, IEEE Cluster 2007, pp.285-292, Austin, TX, Sept. 2007.
    • T. Maoz, A. Barak and L. Amar, Combining Virtual Machine Migration with Process Migration for HPC on Multi-Clusters and Grids, IEEE Cluster 2008, pp. 89-98, Tsukuba, Sept. 2008.
    • L. Amar, A. Barak, Z. Drezner and M. Okun, Randomized Gossip Algorithms for Maintaining a Distributed Bulletin Board with Guaranteed Age Properties, Concurrency and Computation: Practice & Experience, Vol. 21, Issue 15, pp. 1907-1927, 2009.

  • MOSIX Reach the Clouds (MOSRC)1

  • Development 2008-09
  • Name: MOSRC
  • Configuration: Multi-cluster Cloud with i386 and x86_64 workstations and servers connected by 1Gb Ethernet and QDR Infiniband
  • Compatible with: Linux-2.6.

    Version 11

  • Development 2011-12
  • Name: MOSIX-3 for Linux 3.X
  • Configuration: Multi-cluster with x86_64 workstations and servers connected by 1Gb Ethernet and QDR Infiniband.

    Version 12

  • Development 2014
  • Name: MOSIX-4 for Linux 4.X
  • Configuration: Multi-cluster cloud
  • No longer requires a kernel-patch
  • Should work with kernel 4.12.13 onwards.

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