Version 3.1.0 (Matterhorn) of the Rocks cluster distribution is released and now supports three processor families: Intel IA-32, Intel Itanium Processor Family, and AMD Opteron. This is the released version of software that was used to build a fully-functioning 128-node grid-enabled cluster in under 2 hours on opening night last month at SC2003 in Phoenix, AZ. Rocks is developed by the Grid and Cluster Computing Group at SDSC and by partners at the University of California, Berkeley, Scalable Systems in Singapore, and individual open-source software developers.

This is a co-release for x86 (Pentium, Athlon, and others), Itanium2 (IA-64) and Opteron (x86-64) based clusters. Software is freely available for download to burn onto a bootable CD set for x86 and x86-64 or a single DVD for Itanium2. Versions for all processor families are available at:

http://www.rocksclusters.org/rocks-documentation/3.1.0/iso-images.html

Introduced on Version 3.0.0, this version enhances the “roll” mechanism to enable users, communities and others to easily add on optional software and configuration. These optional “Roll CDs” extend the system by integrating seamlessly and automatically into the management and packaging mechanisms used by base software. For all intents and purposes, rolls appear as if they are part of the original CD distribution. A number of defined extension rolls are freely available and include HPC, Sun Grid Engine, Grid (based on NMI), Java and Intel Compiler. An important feature is that new rolls can be created or updated independently of the core distribution. This fundamentally enables science teams and communities to add on domain-specific software packages, define a particular grid configuration, or simply modify any of the default configuration or package settings.

New features in NPACI Rocks 3.1.0 include:

- Opteron Support
- Sun Grid Engine as default queuing System - Upgraded Ganglia server and client, used for collecting and visualizing cluster-wide monitoring metrics
- Upgraded MPICH-GM and Myrinet GM 2.0 for the latest Rev D. Cards
- Rocks-developed 411 information system to replace Network Information Service (NIS)
- Updated SSH version 3.7.1 with no login delay
- Several Optional Software Rolls including:
- NSF Middleware Initiative version R4 grid distribution
- Java 2
- Intel Compilers for x86 and ia64

Rocks 3.1.0 is derived from Red Hat’s publicly available source packages (SRPMS) used in portions of their Enterprise Linux 3.0 Product Line. All SRPMs have been recompiled to enable redistribution. All available updates for these packages have been pre-applied. Rocks-specific software and standard cluster and grid community software is then added to create a complete clustering toolkit. All Rocks source code is available in a public CVS repository.