ACT dir is Advanced Clustering's compilation of the best open-source software, and tools created by Advanced Clustering for high-performance computing.  ACT dir comes free and is installed on all of our Apex Compute Cluster systems.  Named because all software is installed and conveniently contained in the /act directory on the head node of your compute cluster.  This allows our supplied software to be easily upgraded and not conflict with any other software you plan on installing on your system.

The following software included with the ACT dir installation:

All of Advanced Clustering's innovative software packages

ACT dir isn't the only great thing about Advanced Clusterings' Apex Compute Clusters.  Click here to learn more about everything you get when purchasing your next cluster from us.

• Breakin - Our hardware stress-test and diagnostic utility.
  
• Cloner - Our image replication and node installation software.
  
• Beo Utils - Our set of command line utilities to easy cluster administration and management.
  

Multiple message passing (MPI) libraries

• MPICH2 for MPI across ethernet networks
• MVAPICH and MVAPICH2 for MPI across InfiniBand networks
• OpenMPI as an alternative to MPICH and MVAPICH supporting both ethernet and InfiniBand networks
• All versions of MPI are compiled with the following compilers:
  • GNU Compilers - comes standard with all Linux distributions and our Apex Clusters
    
  • Portland Group Compilers - optional optimizing compiler strongly recommended for our Opteron based Apex Clusters
    
  • Intel Compiler Suite - optional optimizing compiler strongly recomended for our Intel based Apex Clusters
• For more information, MPI library websites: MPICH2, MVAPICH, MVAPICH2, and OpenMPI

Easy to use environment setup tool

• Pre-configured shell environment setup for both BASH and CSH users
• Automatically makes user based SSH key pairs on login if not already created
• Creates user based MPD config files with random "secretwords"
• The "modules" environment setup program
  • Allows users to easily switch between different compilers and MPI libraries with simple commands.
  • Preconfigured with modules options appropriate for your custom configured cluster
  • More information on Modules at the Modules project website

The latest InfiniBand software

• Since the Linux distributions may not include the most recent InfiniBand drivers we always provide provide them for you as part of the Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution.
  
• Providing the latest version of Open Fabrics allows us to support the newest hardware and provides the best performance possible for your investment in InfiniBand hardware.
• More information from the Open Fabrics website.

Your choice of job queuing / scheduler system

• Both Torque and GridEngine are available as part of the ACT dir software package.  When you fill out your custom Cluster Order Configuration Form you can specify which scheduling system you would like to be installed and configured on your system.
• With either scheduler system install we provide a full directory of examples on how to submit jobs.  This includes single threaded serial jobs, and complex parallel jobs with MPI.
• If you'd like more advanced features or easier setup and configuration than either Torque or GridEngine can provide we offer the commercial software package Moab.   Moab provides a easy to use graphical configuration utility and a very powerful scheduler with many options.
• More information on the various schedulers: Torque, GridEngine, and Moab.

Monitoring and Benchmarking/Diagnostic tools

• Every Cluster from Advanced Clustering ships with the popular, powerful web-based monitoring system Ganglia.  Ganglia provides a current and historical view of your cluster's operation with data collection on a variety of useful metrics including: memory utilization, processor utilization, disk I/O, network I/O and many more.
• Before each Apex Cluster ships we run a full series of diagnostic tests with HPC benchmarking tools like HPC Challenge, and Intel MPI Benchmarks.  These benchmark utilities are installed on your system so you can run them and verify the results yourself.
• More information on Ganglia and HPC Challenge.