Chapter 17: PBS: Portable Batch System

Overview

James Patton Jones

The Portable Batch System (PBS) is a flexible workload management and job scheduling system originally developed to manage aerospace computing resources at NASA. PBS has since become the leader in supercomputer workload management and the de facto standard job scheduler for Linux.

Today, growing enterprises often support hundreds of users running thousands of jobs across different types of machines in different geographical locations. In this distributed heterogeneous environment, it can be extremely difficult for administrators to collect detailed, accurate usage data or to set systemwide resource priorities. As a result, many computing resources are left underused, while others are overused. At the same time, users are confronted with an ever-expanding array of operating systems and platforms. Each year, scientists, engineers, designers, and analysts waste countless hours learning the nuances of different computing environments, rather than being able to focus on their core priorities. PBS addresses these problems for computing-intensive industries such as science, engineering, finance, and entertainment.

PBS allows you to unlock the potential in the valuable assets you already have, while at the same time reducing demands on system administrators, freeing them to focus on other activities. PBS can also help you effectively manage growth by tracking use levels across your systems and enhancing effective utilization of future purchases.