Penguin Computing has built a Scyld Integrated Management Framework (IMF) that's supposed to make it easier to monitor and manage what are usually quite elaborate HPC Beowolf clusters.

It aggregates functionality in a single web interface and is extensible so users can add custom functionality whenever they like. Penguin thinks it's the first to provide this kind of management extensibility to an HPC cluster.

Being web-based, the widgetry can be run from a smartphone or PDA.

IMF is described as a rich Internet application built on standard JavaScript components and XML. It can integrate third-party or end-user custom management tools, such as those for monitoring the status of Ethernet or InfiniBand switches.

HPC clusters have many hardware and software pieces, such as servers, network fabrics, workload managers and provisioning systems that are supposed to work together seamlessly, which is why IMF integrates disparate tools for managing the respective cluster components and provides a single unified view of the hardware and software assets.

Penguin says it also offers functionality for controlling servers, complementing Scyld ClusterWare's ability to self-heal.

Both Scyld IMF and Scyld ClusterWare can be downloaded for a free evaluation.