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Manage GridLink Farm: Controller and Utility

AXIS GridLink Controller and GridLink Module Utility are 2 components of the AXIS GridLink Module.

Please note that it requires the AXIS GridLink Module Licence.

Please note that AXIS GridLink Controller and GridLink Module Utility can only run on Windows XP Professional, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2003, Server 2008 and HPC Server.

AXIS GridLink Service

A GridLink controller running on a machine with a valid licence is called a licenced controller, which serves as an entry point to the farm from a client machine outside of the server farm. A licenced controller can receive batch jobs submitted by AXIS users, launch AXIS master and helpers to run jobs, and allow users to monitor the job status. A licenced controller can request other controllers, including non-licenced controllers, to launch helpers to help the master in a distributed batch job. The controller keeps a queue of batch jobs submitted from users. The jobs run on the server farm in sequence. Users can connect to the controller to monitor the job status and control the jobs.

GridLink controller runs as a Window service. Whenever the server is rebooted, the service will be restarted automatically without any interactive user log on session.

GridLink Service can be remotely installed, uninstalled and managed from a central location by using GridLink Utility.

AXIS GridLink Utility

AXIS GridLink Utility runs on the user's local machine and allows the user to remotely configure AXIS GridLink Controllers without logging on to the server. The utility only needs to be installed on one machine, either outside the farm or on one of the servers on the farm.

Please note the the administrator rights are required to manage GridLink service on the servers. If the user account under which he/she run the utility doesn't belong to the local administrator's group on the servers, the user can still run the utility to view server list, deploy AXIS versions, check job status, change farm settings, etc., however, he/she would not be able to install, uninstall, start, stop and check GridLink service status on the servers.

Farm Profiles and Profile Host

A farm profile is a collection of configurations including the list of server computers on the processor farm and settings for GridLink controllers running on the servers. Farms are managed by GridLink Utility program, and multiple farm profiles are saved in one server with a licenced controller running. This server is called a Profile Host.

Upon start-up of the GridLink Utility, the user is required to provide a password to retrieve all farm profiles from the Profile Host. The default password is "Admin".

All options, e.g. AXIS installation path, batch status update rate, etc., can be configured by the utility. Some options, such as TCP port number and password, are crucial for the utility to connect to the Profile Host and controllers on the farms. Therefore, they cannot be configured by the utility.

Due to the nature of a Windows Service, there's no user interface available for users to change to TCP port or reset the password. In the case that the user needs to do so, he/she can run a tool "AXIS GridLink Service First Aid" (FirstAid.exe), which is located under GridLink installation directory.

Starting GridLink Utility

GridLink Utility is password-protected for security purpose. The default password is "Admin" (case-sensitive) and can be changed with the utility. (Please see "Change Password" for more details.).

The utility connects to the Profile Host, which validates the password, and sends farm profiles currently saved on the host to the utility. If "Connect to all controllers when opening a farm profile" is checked, then when the utility opens a farm profile, it will connect to all controllers running on servers included in the farm. The utility then shows all servers in the current farm, with information about the number of CPU cores, number of licenced helpers, current status, etc. for each server, if the server is being connected.

An alternative way to start GridLink Utility is to use the command line options. The following is the syntax:

GridLinkUtil.exe [-PFHOST:servername] [-PWD:password] [-TCPPORT:portnumber] [-FARM:farmname]

-PFHOST: specify the name of Profile Host
-PWD: specify the logon password
-TCPPORT: specify the TCP port number
-FARM: specify the name of the farm if you have created more than one farm profile

e.g. GridLinkUtil.exe -PFHOST:Server1 -PWD:Admin

In the command line, if you have specified both the Profile Host and the Password, and you also specified the Farm Name or there’s only one farm profile, then the logon process will be performed automatically.

When creating a new farm, you will be asked to create a Farm Profile first. There are 3 ways to create a new farm profile.

  1. Create a new farm with empty server list and default settings.
  2. Create a new farm based on an existing farm profile.
  3. Create a new farm based on a farm profile retrieved from an existing server.

After a farm profile has been created, you can add servers into the farm, sort server list, and configure all options using the utility.

Information Displayed in GridLink Utility

If the utility has connected to all controllers in a farm and confirmed that they all have the up-to-date farm profile, then the status of this farm is "ready". Otherwise, the status is "not ready". Please make sure that the farm status is "ready" before it can be used. If the user submits a job to a farm whose status is "not ready", then it may not behave as the user expects.

Please note that if you have 2 farms that share same servers, selecting one farm will affect the status of the other. e.g. If you have a farm "TLAB" that has tlab0, tlab1, tlab2, and tlab3, and another farm "HALF-TLAB" that has tlab0 and tlab1, once you have selected "TLAB" as the current farm, the status of the farm "HALF-TLAB" will become "not ready" because the profile on all servers would be updated with the profile saved as "TLAB".

The icons on the dialog bar are shortcuts for:

    Add Server to Farm

    Farm Settings

    Check Job Status on Servers

    Update Profile on Controllers

    Install AXIS on Servers

    Check AXIS versions on Servers

There is no limit on the size of a GridLink farm, but there is a limit on the number of CPU cores participating in one distributable job on a farm. Currently GridLink supports up to 256 CPU cores per job. One CPU core is used to run one AXIS copy.

On the status bar, the utility shows the maximum number of helpers that can participate in one distributable job on the farm. It is the summation of licenced helpers on all controllers on the farm, limited up to 255 helpers.

In the case that a controller is disconnected from the utility, a small red icon will be displayed in front of the server name.

Whenever a profile has been changed (e.g. a new server was added, or some settings have been changed), the profile will be send to all controllers automatically if they are connected, and the user will see the message "Profile was updated successfully" for each controller if the profile was updated. In the case that a profile cannot be updated on a server (e.g. the user tries to remove a server from the farm while a job is running on it), an exclamation mark will be displayed in front of the server name. Then the user will need to update it manually later.

Use GridLink Utility to Mange Server Farms

The features in GridLink Utility are explained in the following topics:

Most menu items available in the main frame window are also available when the user right-clicks on a single server. The action that you select from the right-click menu will be performed only on the selected server.

In GridLink Utility, you can select the menu "Help - Help Topics" to view the help text.
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