[ptp-dev] Parallel Environment implementation for PTP Resource Manager m

[Dave Wootton <dwootton@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have my protoype code that implements PE support working, I think
correctly with the PTP head level code I grabbed Tuesday night. The job
view seems to update correctly, my PE implementation shows up as a resource
manager that I can start and stop, and when I invoke an application using
the PE resource manager, I can see the machine view update with state
changes from available to running to completed as my job runs. It isn't
perfect, but at least I'm somewhere in the right area.

So, if you have the time later next week, I'd like to have a conference
call to discuss a couple things that I've been trying to resolve, and
whatever else may come up.

1) How should the machine view deal with how PE can be used interactively,
where there is no global daemon running to trach the state of the cluster,
and all a PE process knows about is itself? I can submit multiple PE jobs,
each, in principle, with their own host list and therefore different set of
nodes. This implies that the machine view can add and delete nodes. This
also raises questions about deleting nodes, since otehr things may care
about node numbering.

2) What's the direction for specifying things like PE environment variables
to run an application? The simplest solution is to just specify a script
file that contains the environment variables, and in essence, run that
before running the application. This puts the burden on the user to set the
script up. The other extreme is to have settings panels, either in
preferences or launch configuration, that provide checkboxes, buttons,
droptdowns, etc, and maybe tooltip text so a new user sees something a
little more friendly, but which puts the burden of managing the compexity
of environment variable rules on the maintainers of the PTP code. Maybe
both are required, to support both the new and experienced users.

I don't have any way to set up a conference call now (I should work on
that), so if we can do this, I'll need somebody else to set one up.
Somebody mentioned Thursday being better. That works for me, and I am
around all week. If you would rather wait until January, I can do that too.

Thanks
Dave