SUNMOS

SUNMOS (Sandia/UNM Operating System) is an <a href="/facts/Operating_system/8XTuvMh2">operating system</a> jointly developed by <a href="/facts/Sandia_National_Laboratories/LYsKDj45">Sandia National Laboratories</a> and the Computer Science Department at the <a href="/facts/University_of_New_Mexico/7KnmajYB">University of New Mexico</a>. The goal of the project, started in 1991, is to develop a highly portable, yet efficient, operating system for massively <a href="/facts/Distributed_computing/o5nyhqTF">parallel-distributed</a> memory systems.
SUNMOS uses a single-<a href="/facts/Task_(computing)/ghdT0IkM">tasking</a> <a href="/facts/Kernel_(operating_system)/uEj4U3Rz">kernel</a> and does not provide <a href="/facts/Demand_paging/Y4L70dUh">demand paging</a>. It takes control of all <a href="/facts/Node_(networking)/LBp2vNcJ">nodes</a> in the distributed system. Once an <a href="/facts/Application_software/YQuj7Kog">application</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Sun_Microsystems/VJ9EzEFd">Sun</a> frontend for the <a href="/facts/NCUBE/EjvI1Jkx">nCUBE 2</a>, and on a service node on the <a href="/facts/Intel_Paragon/cYmqwy7P">Intel Paragon</a>.
SUNMOS was developed as a reaction to the heavy weight version of <a href="/facts/OSF%2f1/mck5Bgyq">OSF/1</a> that ran as a <a href="/facts/Single-system_image/9uQE0fcS">single-system image</a> 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.
The ideas in SUNMOS inspired PUMA, a multitasking variant that only ran on the <a href="/facts/Intel_i860/e2wRyFV1">i860</a> Paragon. Among the extensions in PUMA was the <a href="/facts/Portals_network_programming_application_programming_interface/ccbaDvFP">Portals API</a>, a scalable, high performance message passing API. Intel ported PUMA and Portals to the <a href="/facts/Pentium_Pro/mTAN64fo">Pentium Pro</a> based <a href="/facts/ASCI_Red/4vP9Hmko">ASCI Red</a> system and named it Cougar. <a href="/facts/Cray/coAlupuy">Cray</a> ported Cougar to the <a href="/facts/Opteron/IF1ueyIJ">Opteron</a> based <a href="/facts/Cray_XT3/g56R5w2h">Cray XT3</a> and renamed it <a href="/facts/Catamount_(operating_system)/nGX3sXI2">Catamount</a>. A version of Catamount was released to the public named OpenCatamount.
In 2009, the Catamount <a href="/facts/Lightweight_kernel_operating_system/QsVEtdLX">lightweight kernel</a> was selected for an R&D 100 Award.

SUNMOS open-in-new

SUNMOS