View source for SUNMOS

{{Short description|Computer operating system}}
'''SUNMOS''' ('''Sandia/UNM Operating System''') is an [[operating system]] jointly developed by [[Sandia National Laboratories]] and the Computer Science Department at the [[University of New Mexico]]. The goal of the project, started in 1991, is to develop a highly portable, yet efficient, operating system for massively [[distributed computing|parallel-distributed]] memory systems.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/update/479476 | title=SUNMOS? | accessdate=2006-05-19 | author=Rolf Riesen, Lee Ann Fisk|display-authors=etal}}&mdash;a paper that explains what SUNMOS is (CiteSeer cached copy)</ref>

SUNMOS uses a single-[[task (computing)|task]]ing [[kernel (operating system)|kernel]] and does not provide [[demand paging]]. It takes control of all [[node (networking)|node]]s in the distributed system. Once an [[application software|application]] is loaded and running, it can manage all the available memory on a node and use the full resources provided by the hardware. Applications are started and controlled from a process called ''yod'' that runs on the host node. Yod runs on a [[Sun Microsystems|Sun]] frontend for the [[nCUBE|nCUBE 2]], and on a service node on the [[Intel Paragon]].

SUNMOS was developed as a reaction to the heavy weight version of [[OSF/1]] that ran as a [[single-system image]] on the Paragon and consumed 8-12 MB of the 16 MB available on each node, leaving little memory available for the compute applications.  In comparison, SUNMOS used 250 KB of memory per node.  Additionally, the overhead of OSF/1 limited the network bandwidth to 35 MB/s, while SUNMOS was able to use 170 MB/s of the peak 200 MB/s available.<ref>
{{cite web
  |url=http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121357111/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
  |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130105215145/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121357111/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
  |url-status=dead
  |archive-date=2013-01-05
  |title=Designing and implementing lightweight kernels for capability computing
  |author=Rolf Riesen
  |accessdate=2009-10-12
  |display-authors=etal
  }}
</ref>

The ideas in SUNMOS inspired PUMA, a multitasking variant that only ran on the [[Intel i860|i860]] Paragon.  Among the extensions in PUMA was the [[Portals network programming application programming interface|Portals API]], a scalable, high performance message passing API.  Intel ported PUMA and Portals to the [[Pentium Pro]] based [[ASCI Red]] system and named it Cougar.  [[Cray]] ported Cougar to the [[Opteron]] based [[Cray XT3]] and renamed it [[Catamount (operating system)|Catamount]].  A version of Catamount was released to the public named OpenCatamount.

In 2009, the Catamount [[lightweight kernel operating system|lightweight kernel]] was selected for an [[R&D 100 Award]].<ref>{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.rdmag.com/Awards/RD-100-Awards/2009/07/Operating-System-Boosts-High-Performance-Computing/
 |title        = Operating system boosts high performance computing
 |publisher    = R&D Magazine
 |date         = 2009-07-30
 |access-date   = 2009-11-10
 |archive-url  = https://archive.today/20130201005236/http://www.rdmag.com/Awards/RD-100-Awards/2009/07/Operating-System-Boosts-High-Performance-Computing/
 |archive-date = 2013-02-01
 |url-status     = dead
 }}</ref><ref>{{cite press release
| url = http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/sandia-wins-five-rd-100-awards-plays-role-in-sixth/
| title = Sandia wins five R&D 100 awards, plays role in sixth
| publisher = [[Sandia National Laboratories]]
| date = 2009-07-20
| accessdate = 2009-11-10
}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Compute Node Linux]]
* [[CNK operating system]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
*[ftp://ftp.cs.sandia.gov/pub/sunmos/ SUNMOS FTP site]{{dead link|date=May 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
*[http://www.swcp.com/~mccurley/humor/sunmos_humor.html A humorous field guide to differences between SUNMOS and OSF]
*[http://www.cs.sandia.gov/~rbbrigh/OpenCatamount/ OpenCatamount].

{{Supercomputer operating systems}}

[[Category:Supercomputer operating systems]]
[[Category:Sandia National Laboratories]]


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