II-NEW: ARC: A Root Cluster for Research into Scalable Computer Systems

可扩展性是使用数百甚至数千个处理器进行计算的关键挑战之一。 然而，如果需要修改具有特权访问权限的系统软件，则不可能使用数百个处理核心大规模测试软件。在大规模计算安装中，无法随意更改系统软件，因此阻碍了系统软件的发展。本项目创建了一个中型计算基础设施，称为ARC（A Root Cluster），直接支持系统级软件解决方案的可扩展性研究。 ARC暂时授予用户管理员（root）权限，并允许他们替换软件堆栈的任意组件。 这种替换范围从整个操作系统到驱动程序、内核模块到运行时库、中间件和系统工具。ARC最终使众多系统研究方向能够在可扩展性下进行评估，否则无法进行。 通过ARC，可以探索和系统地改进实验系统软件在各种机构项目中的可扩展性方法。 ARC的定位是通过对系统软件需求的大规模评估，使软件系统社区受益，并间接地使科学受益。

Scalability is one of the key challenges to computing with hundreds if not thousands of processor. Yet, testing software at scale with hundreds of processing cores is impossible if system software with privileged access rights needs to be modified. The inability to change system software at will in large-scale computing installations thus impedes progress in system software.This project creates a mid-size computational infrastructure, called ARC (A Root Cluster), that directly supports research into scalability for system-level software solutions. ARC empowers users temporarily with administrator (root) rights and allows them to replace arbitrary components of the software stack. Such replacements range from entire operating systems over drivers, kernel modules to runtime libraries, middleware and system tools.ARC ultimately enables a multitude of systems research directions to be assessed under scalability that could otherwise not be conducted. Through ARC, methodologies for scalability of experimental system software in various institutional projects and beyond can be explored and systematically improved. ARC is positioned to benefit the software systems community and indirectly science in general by this assessment of system software requirements at scale.