|
Quattor is a generic open-source tool-kit used to install, configure, and manage computers. Quattor was originally developed in the framework of (European Data Grid ) project (2001-2004). Since its first release in 2003, Quattor has been maintained and extended by a volunteer community of users and developers, primarily from the community of grid system administrators. The Quattor tool-kit, like other configuration management systems, reduces the manpower required to maintain a cluster and facilitates reliable change management. However, three unique features make it particularly attractive for managing grid resources: * Federated Management: The open, modular nature of the tool-kit permits system administrators at different institutes to share the management of their distributed resources. * Shared Configuration and Management Efficiency: Quattor encourages the re-use of configuration information in such a way that it can be distributed and used with little or no modification at different sites, facilitating the distribution of best practices without the need for each site to implement configuration changes. * Coherent Site Model: Quattor allows an administrator to develop a site model that, once constructed, can be used to manage a range of different resources, such as real machines, virtual machines and cloud resources. These features are also attractive beyond the grid context. This has been confirmed by the growing adoption of Quattor, by both large commercial organisations 〔Wall Street and Technology, http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/it-infrastructure/216402934〕 and academic institutions, most of them using the tool-kit to manage consistently their grid and non-grid systems. == Principles == The challenge of structuring and sharing components in a collaborative system is not new; over the years programming language designers have attacked this problem from many angles. While trends change, the basic principles are well understood. Features such as encapsulation, abstraction, modularity, and typing produce clear benefits. We believe that similar principles apply when sharing configuration information across administrative domains. The Quattor configuration tool-kit derives its architecture from LCFG, improving it in several aspects. At the core of Quattor is Pan, a high-level, typed language with flexible include mechanisms, a range of data structures, and validation features familiar to modern programmers. Pan allows collaborative administrators to build up a complex set of configuration templates describing service types, hardware components, configuration parameters, users etc. The use of a high-level language facilitates code reuse in a way that goes beyond cut-and-paste of configuration snippets. The principles embodied in Quattor are in line with those established within the system administration community. In particular, all managed nodes retrieve their configurations from a configuration server backed by a source-control system (or systems in the case of devolved management). This allows individual nodes to be recreated in the case of hardware failure. Quattor handles both distributed and traditional (single-site) infrastructures. Devolved management includes the following features: consistency over a multi-site infrastructure, multiple management points, and the ability to accommodate the specific needs of constituent sites. There is no single “correct” model for a devolved infrastructure, thus great flexibility is needed in the architecture of the configuration system itself. Sometimes a set of highly autonomous sites wish to collaborate loosely. In this case each site will host a fairly comprehensive set of configuration servers, with common configuration information being retrieved from a shared database and integrated with the local configuration. Distributing the management task can potentially introduce new costs. For example, transmitting configuration information over the WAN introduces latency and security concerns. Quattor allows servers to be placed at appropriate locations in the infrastructure to reduce latency, and the use of standard tools and protocols means that existing security systems (such as a public key infrastructure) can be harnessed to encrypt and authenticate communications. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Quattor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|