doc/html/heterogeneous_jobs.shtml

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<h1>Heterogeneous Job Support</h1>

<ul>
<li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
<li><a href="#submitting">Submitting Jobs</a></li>
<li><a href="#burst_buffer">Burst Buffers</a></li>
<li>
  <a href="#managing">Managing Jobs</a>
  <ul><li><a href="#accounting">Accounting</a></li></ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#job_steps">Launching Applications (Job Steps)</a></li>
<li><a href="#env_var">Environment Variables</a></li>
<li><a href="#examples">Examples</a></li>
<li><a href="#limitations">Limitations</a></li>
<li><a href="#het_steps">Heterogeneous Steps</a></li>
<li><a href="#sys_admin">System Administrator Information</a></li>
</ul>

<h2 id="overview">Overview<a class="slurm_link" href="#overview"></a></h2>

<p>Slurm version 17.11 and later supports the ability to submit and manage
heterogeneous jobs, in which each component has virtually all job options
available including partition, account and QOS (Quality Of Service).
For example, part of a job might require four cores and 4 GB for each of 128
tasks while another part of the job would require 16 GB of memory and one CPU.</p>

<h2 id="submitting">Submitting Jobs
<a class="slurm_link" href="#submitting"></a>
</h2>

<p>The <i>salloc</i>, <i>sbatch</i> and <i>srun</i> commands can all be used
to submit heterogeneous jobs.
Resource specifications for each component of the heterogeneous job should be
separated with ":" character.
For example:</p>
<pre>
$ sbatch --cpus-per-task=4 --mem-per-cpu=1  --ntasks=128 : \
         --cpus-per-task=1 --mem-per-cpu=16 --ntasks=1 my.bash
</pre>

<p>Options specified for one component of a heterogeneous job (or job step) will
be used for subsequent components to the extent which is expected to be helpful.
Propagated options can be reset as desired for each component (e.g. a different
account name could be specified for each hetjob component.
For example, <i>--immediate</i> and <i>--job-name</i> are propagated, while
<i>--ntasks</i> and <i>--mem-per-cpu</i> are reset to default values for each
component.
A list of propagated options follows.</p>
<ul>
<li>--account</li>
<li>--acctg-freq</li>
<li>--begin</li>
<li>--cluster-constraint</li>
<li>--clusters</li>
<li>--comment</li>
<li>--deadline</li>
<li>--delay-boot</li>
<li>--dependency</li>
<li>--distribution</li>
<li>--epilog            (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--error</li>
<li>--export</li>
<li>--export-file</li>
<li>--exclude</li>
<li>--get-user-env</li>
<li>--gid</li>
<li>--hold</li>
<li>--ignore-pbs</li>
<li>--immediate</li>
<li>--input</li>
<li>--job-name</li>
<li>--kill-on-bad-exit  (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--label             (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--mcs-label</li>
<li>--mem</li>
<li>--msg-timeout       (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--no-allocate       (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--no-requeue</li>
<li>--nice</li>
<li>--no-kill</li>
<li>--open-mode         (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--output</li>
<li>--parsable</li>
<li>--priority</li>
<li>--profile</li>
<li>--propagate</li>
<li>--prolog            (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--pty               (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--qos</li>
<li>--quiet</li>
<li>--quit-on-interrupt (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--reboot</li>
<li>--reservation</li>
<li>--requeue</li>
<li>--signal</li>
<li>--slurmd-debug      (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--task-epilog       (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--task-prolog       (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--time</li>
<li>--test-only</li>
<li>--time-min</li>
<li>--uid</li>
<li>--unbuffered        (option available only in srun)</li>
<li>--verbose</li>
<li>--wait</li>
<li>--wait-all-nodes</li>
<li>--wckey</li>
<li>--workdir</li>
</ul>

<p>The task distribution specification applies separately within each job
component. Consider for example a heterogeneous job with each component being
allocated 4 CPUs on 2 nodes. In our example, job component zero is allocated
2 CPUs on node "nid00001" and 2 CPUs on node "nid00002". Job component one is
allocated 2 CPUs on node "nid00003" and 2 CPUs on node "nid00004". A task
distribution of "cyclic" will distribute the first 4 tasks in a cyclic fashion
on nodes "nid00001" and "nid00002", then distribute the next 4 tasks in a cyclic
fashion on nodes "nid00003" and "nid00004" as shown below.</p>

<table width="100%" border=1 cellspacing=4 cellpadding=4>
<tr><td align=center>Node nid00001</td><td align=center>Node nid00002</td><td align=center>Node nid00003</td><td align=center>Node nid00004</td></tr>
<tr><td align=center nowrap>Rank 0</td><td align=center>Rank 1</td><td align=center>Rank 4</td><td align=center>Rank 5</td></tr>
<tr><td align=center nowrap>Rank 2</td><td align=center>Rank 3</td><td align=center>Rank 6</td><td align=center>Rank 7</td></tr>
</table>
<br>

<p>Some options should be specified only in the first hetjob component.
For example, specifying a batch job output file in the second hetjob component's
options will result in the first hetjob component (where the batch script
executes) using the default output file name.</p>

<p>Environment variables used to specify default options for the job submit
command will be applied to every component of the heterogeneous job
(e.g. <i>SBATCH_ACCOUNT</i>).</p>

<p>Batch job options can be included in the submitted script for multiple
heterogeneous job components. Each component should be separated by a line
containing the line "#SBATCH hetjob" as shown below.</p>
<pre>
$ cat new.bash
#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=4 --mem-per-cpu=16g --ntasks=1
#SBATCH hetjob
#SBATCH --cpus-per-task=2 --mem-per-cpu=1g  --ntasks=8

srun run.app

$ sbatch new.bash
</pre>

<p>Is equivalent to the following:</p>

<pre>
$ cat my.bash
#!/bin/bash
srun run.app

$ sbatch --cpus-per-task=4 --mem-per-cpu=16g --ntasks=1 : \
         --cpus-per-task=2 --mem-per-cpu=1g  --ntasks=8 my.bash
</pre>

<p>The batch script will be executed in the first node in the first component
of the heterogeneous job. For the above example, that will be the job component
with 1 task, 4 CPUs and 64 GB of memory (16 GB for each of the 4 CPUs).</p>

<p>If a heterogeneous job is submitted to run in multiple clusters <u>not</u>
part of a federation (e.g. "sbatch --cluster=alpha,beta ...") then the entire
job will be sent to the cluster expected to be able to start all components
at the earliest time.</p>

<p>A resource limit test is performed when a heterogeneous job is submitted in
order to immediately reject jobs that will not be able to start with current
limits.
The individual components of the heterogeneous job are validated, like all
regular jobs.
The heterogeneous job as a whole is also tested, but in a more limited
fashion with respect to quality of service (QOS) limits.
Each component of a heterogeneous job counts as a "job" with respect to
resource limits.</p>

<h2 id="burst_buffer">Burst Buffers
<a class="slurm_link" href="#burst_buffer"></a>
</h2>

<p>A burst buffer can either be persistent or linked to a specific job ID.
Since a heterogeneous job consists of multiple job IDs, a job-specific burst
buffer will be associated with only one heterogeneous job component.
Each component can have its own burst buffer directives, and they are processed
separately. Only a persistent burst buffer can be accessed by all components
of a heterogeneous job. Persistent burst buffers are only available in the
datawarp plugin. A sample batch script demonstrating this for the datawarp
plugin is appended.</p>

<pre>
#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --nodes=1 --constraint=haswell
#BB create_persistent name=alpha capacity=10 access=striped type=scratch
#DW persistentdw name=alpha
#SBATCH hetjob
#SBATCH --nodes=16 --constraint=knl
#DW persistentdw name=alpha
...
</pre>

<p><b>NOTE</b>: Cray's DataWarp interface directly reads the job script, but
has no knowledge of "Slurm's "hetjob" directive, so Slurm internally rebuilds
the script for each job component so that only that job component's burst buffer
directives are included in that script. The batch script's first component of the
job will be modified in order to replace the burst buffer directives of other
job components with "#EXCLUDED directive" where directive is "DW" or "BB"
for the datawarp plugin and is the
<a href="burst_buffer.html#submit_lua">configured</a> value for the lua plugin.
This prevents their interpretation by Cray infrastructure and aids
administrators in writing an interface for the lua plugin.
Since the batch script will only be executed by the first job
component, the subsequent job components will not include commands from the
original script. These scripts are built and managed by Slurm for internal
purposes (and visible from various Slurm commands) from a user script as shown
above. An example is shown below:</p>

<pre>
<b>Rebuilt script for first job component</b>

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --nodes=1 --constraint=haswell
#BB create_persistent name=alpha capacity=10 access=striped type=scratch
#DW persistentdw name=alpha
#SBATCH hetjob
#SBATCH --nodes=16 --constraint=knl
#EXCLUDED DW persistentdw name=alpha
...


<b>Rebuilt script for second job component</b>

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --nodes=16 --constraint=knl
#DW persistentdw name=alpha
exit 0
</pre>

<h2 id="managing">Managing Jobs<a class="slurm_link" href="#managing"></a></h2>

<p>Information maintained in Slurm for a heterogeneous job includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><i>job_id</i>: Each component of a heterogeneous job will have its own
unique <i>job_id</i>.</li>
<li><i>het_job_id</i>: This identification number applies to all components
of the heterogeneous job. All components of the same job will have the same
<i>het_job_id</i> value and it will be equal to the <i>job_id</i> of the
first component. We refer to this as the "heterogeneous job leader".</li>
<li><i>het_job_id_set</i>: Regular expression identifying all <i>job_id</i>
values associated with the job.</li>
<li><i>het_job_offset</i>: A unique sequence number applied to each component
of the heterogeneous job. The first component will have a <i>het_job_offset</i>
value of 0, the next a value of 1, etc.</li>
</ul>

<table width="100%" border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4>
<tr>
  <th width="25%"><b>job_id</b></th>
  <th width="25%"><b>het_job_id</b></th>
  <th width="25%"><b>het_job_offset</b></th>
  <th width="25%"><b>het_job_id_set</b></th>
 </tr>

<tr><td>123</td><td>123</td><td>0</td><td>123-127</td></tr>
<tr><td>124</td><td>123</td><td>1</td><td>123-127</td></tr>
<tr><td>125</td><td>123</td><td>2</td><td>123-127</td></tr>
<tr><td>126</td><td>123</td><td>3</td><td>123-127</td></tr>
<tr><td>127</td><td>123</td><td>4</td><td>123-127</td></tr>
</table>
<p>Table 1: Example job IDs</p>

<p>The <i>squeue</i> and <i>sview</i> commands report the
components of a heterogeneous job using the format
"&lt;het_job_id&gt;+&lt;het_job_offset&gt;".
For example "123+4" would represent heterogeneous job id 123 and its fifth
component (note: the first component has a <i>het_job_offset</i> value of 0).</p>

<p>A request for a specific job ID that identifies a ID of the first component
of a heterogeneous job (i.e. the "heterogeneous job leader") will return
information about all components of that job. For example:</p>
<pre>
$ squeue --job=93
JOBID PARTITION  NAME  USER ST  TIME  NODES NODELIST
 93+0     debug  bash  adam  R 18:18      1 nid00001
 93+1     debug  bash  adam  R 18:18      1 nid00011
 93+2     debug  bash  adam  R 18:18      1 nid00021
</pre>

<p>A request to cancel or otherwise signal a heterogeneous job leader will be applied to
all components of that heterogeneous job. A request to cancel a specific component of
the heterogeneous job using the "#+#" notation will apply only to that specific component.
For example:</p>
<pre>
$ squeue --job=93
JOBID PARTITION  NAME  USER ST  TIME  NODES NODELIST
 93+0     debug  bash  adam  R 19:18      1 nid00001
 93+1     debug  bash  adam  R 19:18      1 nid00011
 93+2     debug  bash  adam  R 19:18      1 nid00021
$ scancel 93+1
$ squeue --job=93
JOBID PARTITION  NAME  USER ST  TIME  NODES NODELIST
 93+0     debug  bash  adam  R 19:38      1 nid00001
 93+2     debug  bash  adam  R 19:38      1 nid00021
$ scancel 93
$ squeue --job=93
JOBID PARTITION  NAME  USER ST  TIME  NODES NODELIST
</pre>

<p>While a heterogeneous job is in pending state, only the entire job can be
cancelled rather than its individual components.
A request to cancel an individual component of a heterogeneous job in
pending state will return an error.
After the job has begun execution, the individual component can be cancelled.</p>

<p>Email notification for job state changes (the <i>--mail-type</i> option)
is only supported for a heterogeneous job leader. Requests for email
notifications for other components of a heterogeneous job will be silently
ignored.</p>

<p>Requests to modify an individual component of a job using the scontrol
command must specify the job ID with the "#+#" notation.
A request to modify a job by specifying the het_job_id will modify all
components of a heterogeneous job.
For example:</p>
<pre>
# Change the account of component 2 of heterogeneous job 123:
$ scontrol update jobid=123+2 account=abc

# Change the time limit of all components of heterogeneous job 123:
$ scontrol update jobid=123 timelimit=60
</pre>

<p>Requests to perform the following operations a job can only be requested for
a heterogeneous job leader and will be applied to all components of that
heterogeneous job. Requests to operate on individual components of the
heterogeneous will return an error.</p>
<ul>
<li>requeue</li>
<li>resume</li>
<li>suspend</li>
</ul>

<p>The sbcast command supports heterogeneous job allocations. By default,
sbcast will copy files to all nodes in the job allocation. The -j/--jobid
option can be used to copy files to individual components as shown below.</p>
<pre>
$ sbcast --jobid=123   data /tmp/data
$ sbcast --jobid=123.0 app0 /tmp/app0
$ sbcast --jobid=123.1 app1 /tmp/app1
</pre>

<p>The srun commands --bcast option will transfer files to the nodes associated
with the application to be launched as specified by the --het-group option.</p>

<p>Slurm has a configuration option to control behavior of some commands with
respect to heterogeneous jobs.
By default a request to cancel, hold or release a job ID that is not the
het_job_id, but that of a job component will only operate that one component
of the heterogeneous job.
If SchedulerParameters configuration parameter includes the option
"whole_hetjob" then the operation would apply to all components of the job if
any job component is specified to be operated upon. In the below example, the
scancel command will either cancel all components of job 93 if
SchedulerParameters=whole_hetjob is configured, otherwise only job 93+1 will be
cancelled. If a specific heterogeneous job component is specified (e.g. "scancel
93+1"), then only that one component will be effected.</p>
<pre>
$ squeue --job=93
JOBID PARTITION  NAME  USER ST  TIME  NODES NODELIST
 93+0     debug  bash  adam  R 19:18      1 nid00001
 93+1     debug  bash  adam  R 19:18      1 nid00011
 93+2     debug  bash  adam  R 19:18      1 nid00021
$ scancel 94 (where job ID 94 is equivalent to 93+1)
# Cancel 93+0, 93+1 and 93+2 if SchedulerParameters includes "whole_hetjob"
# Cancel only 93+1 if SchedulerParameters does not include "whole_hetjob"
</pre>

<h3 id="accounting">Accounting<a class="slurm_link" href="#accounting"></a></h3>

<p>Slurm's accounting database records the het_job_id and het_job_offset
fields.
The sacct command reports job's using the format
"&lt;het_job_id&gt;+&lt;het_job_offset&gt;" and can accept a job ID
specification for filtering using the same format.
If a het_job_id value is specified as a job filter, then information about
all components of that job will be reported as shown below by default.
The <i>--whole-hetjob=[yes|no]</i> option can be used to force to report
the information about all the components of that job or just about the specific
component requested, no matter if the job filter includes the het_job_id
(leader) or not.
</p>

<pre>
$ sacct -j 67767
  JobID JobName Partition Account AllocCPUS     State ExitCode
------- ------- --------- ------- --------- --------- --------
67767+0     foo     debug    test         2 COMPLETED      0:0
67767+1     foo     debug    test         4 COMPLETED      0:0

$  sacct -j 67767+1
  JobID JobName Partition Account AllocCPUS     State ExitCode
------- ------- --------- ------- --------- --------- --------
67767+1     foo     debug    test         4 COMPLETED      0:0

$  sacct -j 67767 --whole-hetjob=no
  JobID JobName Partition Account AllocCPUS     State ExitCode
------- ------- --------- ------- --------- --------- --------
67767+0     foo     debug    test         4 COMPLETED      0:0

$ sacct -j 67767+1 --whole-hetjob=yes
  JobID JobName Partition Account AllocCPUS     State ExitCode
------- ------- --------- ------- --------- --------- --------
67767+0     foo     debug    test         2 COMPLETED      0:0
67767+1     foo     debug    test         4 COMPLETED      0:0
</pre>

<h2 id="job_steps">Launching Applications (Job Steps)
<a class="slurm_link" href="#job_steps"></a>
</h2>

<p>The srun command is used to launch applications.
By default, the application is launched only on the first component of a
heterogeneous job, but options are available to support different behaviors.</p>

<p>srun's "--het-group" option defines which hetjob component(s) are to have
applications launched for them. The --het-group option takes an expression
defining which component(s) are to launch an application for an individual
execution of the srun command. The expression can contain one or more component
index values in a comma separated list. Ranges of index values can be specified
in a hyphen separated list. By default, an application is launched only on
component number zero. Some examples follow:</p>
<ul>
<li>--het-group=2</li>
<li>--het-group=0,4</li>
<li>--het-group=1,3-5</li>
</ul>

<p><b>IMPORTANT:</b> The ability to execute a single application across more
than one job allocation does not work with all MPI implementations or Slurm MPI
plugins. Slurm's ability to execute such an application can be disabled on the
entire cluster by adding "disable_hetjob_steps" to Slurm's SchedulerParameters
configuration parameter.</p>

<p><b>IMPORTANT:</b> While the srun command can be used to launch heterogeneous
job steps, mpirun would require substantial modification to support
heterogeneous applications. We are aware of no such mpirun development efforts
at this time.</p>

<p>By default, the applications launched by a single execution of the srun
command (even for different components of the heterogeneous job) are combined
into one MPI_COMM_WORLD with non-overlapping task IDs.</p>

<p>As with the salloc and sbatch commands, the ":" character is used to
separate multiple components of a heterogeneous job.
This convention means that the stand-alone ":" character can not be used as an
argument to an application launched by srun.
This includes the ability to execute different applications and arguments
for each job component.
If some heterogeneous job component lacks an application specification, the next
application specification provided will be used for earlier components lacking
one as shown below.</p>
<pre>
$ srun --label -n2 : -n1 hostname
0: nid00012
1: nid00012
2: nid00013
</pre>

<p>If multiple srun commands are executed concurrently, this may result in resource
contention (e.g. memory limits preventing some job steps components from being
allocated resources because of two srun commands executing at the same time).
If the srun --het-group option is used to create multiple job steps (for the
different components of a heterogeneous job), those job steps will be created
sequentially.
When multiple srun commands execute at the same time, this may result in some
step allocations taking place, while others are delayed.
Only after all job step allocations have been granted will the application
being launched.</p>

<p>All components of a job step will have the same step ID value.
If job steps are launched on subsets of the job components there may be gaps in
the step ID values for individual job components.</p>
<pre>
$ salloc -n1 : -n2 beta bash
salloc: Pending job allocation 1721
salloc: Granted job allocation 1721
$ srun --het-group=0,1 true   # Launches steps 1721.0 and 1722.0
$ srun --het-group=0   true   # Launches step  1721.1, no 1722.1
$ srun --het-group=0,1 true   # Launches steps 1721.2 and 1722.2
</pre>

<p>The maximum het-group specified in a job step allocation (either explicitly
specified or implied by the ":" separator) must not exceed the number of
components in the heterogeneous job allocation. For example</p>
<pre>
$ salloc -n1 -C alpha : -n2 -C beta bash
salloc: Pending job allocation 1728
salloc: Granted job allocation 1728
$ srun --het-group=0,1 hostname
nid00001
nid00008
nid00008
$ srun hostname : date : id
error: Attempt to run a job step with het-group value of 2,
       but the job allocation has maximum value of 1
</pre>

<h2 id="env_var">Environment Variables
<a class="slurm_link" href="#env_var"></a>
</h2>

<p>Slurm environment variables will be set independently for each component of
the job by appending "_HET_GROUP_" and a sequence number to the usual name.
In addition, the "SLURM_JOB_ID" environment variable will contain the job ID
of the heterogeneous job leader and "SLURM_HET_SIZE" will contain the number of
components in the job. Note that if using srun with a single specific
het group (for instance --het-group=1) "SLURM_JOB_ID" will contain the job
ID of the heterogeneous job leader. The job ID for a specific heterogeneous
component is set in "SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_&lt;component_id&gt;". For example:
</p>
<pre>
$ salloc -N1 : -N2 bash
salloc: Pending job allocation 11741
salloc: job 11741 queued and waiting for resources
salloc: job 11741 has been allocated resources
$ env | grep SLURM
SLURM_JOB_ID=11741
SLURM_HET_SIZE=2
SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_0=11741
SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_1=11742
SLURM_JOB_NODES_HET_GROUP_0=1
SLURM_JOB_NODES_HET_GROUP_1=2
SLURM_JOB_NODELIST_HET_GROUP_0=nid00001
SLURM_JOB_NODELIST_HET_GROUP_1=nid[00011-00012]
...
$ srun --het-group=1 printenv SLURM_JOB_ID
11741
11741
$ srun --het-group=0 printenv SLURM_JOB_ID
11741
$ srun --het-group=1 printenv SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_1
11742
11742
$ srun --het-group=0 printenv SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_0
11741
</pre>

<p>The various MPI implementations rely heavily upon Slurm environment variables
for proper operation.
A single MPI application executing in a single MPI_COMM_WORLD requires a
uniform set of environment variables that reflect a single job allocation.
The example below shows how Slurm sets environment variables for MPI.</p>
<pre>
$ salloc -N1 : -N2 bash
salloc: Pending job allocation 11741
salloc: job 11751 queued and waiting for resources
salloc: job 11751 has been allocated resources
$ env | grep SLURM
SLURM_JOB_ID=11751
SLURM_HET_SIZE=2
SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_0=11751
SLURM_JOB_ID_HET_GROUP_1=11752
SLURM_JOB_NODELIST_HET_GROUP_0=nid00001
SLURM_JOB_NODELIST_HET_GROUP_1=nid[00011-00012]
...
$ srun --het-group=0,1 env | grep SLURM
SLURM_JOB_ID=11751
SLURM_JOB_NODELIST=nid[00001,00011-00012]
...
</pre>

<h2 id="examples">Examples<a class="slurm_link" href="#examples"></a></h2>

<p>Create a heterogeneous resource allocation containing one node with 256GB
of memory and a feature of "haswell" plus 2176 cores on 32 nodes with a
feature of "knl". Then launch a program called "server" on the "haswell" node
and "client" on the "knl" nodes. Each application will be in its own
MPI_COMM_WORLD.</p>
<pre>
salloc -N1 --mem=256GB -C haswell : \
       -n2176 -N32 --ntasks-per-core=1 -C knl bash
srun server &
srun --het-group=1 client &
wait
</pre>

<p>This variation of the above example launches programs "server" and "client"
in a single MPI_COMM_WORLD.</p>
<pre>
salloc -N1 --mem=256GB -C haswell : \
       -n2176 -N32 --ntasks-per-core=1 -C knl bash
srun server : client
</pre>

<p>The SLURM_PROCID environment variable will be set to reflect a global
task rank. Each spawned process will have a unique SLURM_PROCID.</p>

<p>Similarly, the SLURM_NPROCS and SLURM_NTASKS environment variables will be set
to reflect a global task count (both environment variables will have the same
value).
SLURM_NTASKS will be set to the total count of tasks in all components.
Note that the task rank and count values are needed by MPI and typically
determined by examining Slurm environment variables.</p>

<h2 id="limitations">Limitations
<a class="slurm_link" href="#limitations"></a>
</h2>

<p>The backfill scheduler has limitations in how it tracks usage of CPUs and
memory in the future.
This typically requires the backfill scheduler be able to allocate each
component of a heterogeneous job on a different node in order to begin its
resource allocation, even if multiple components of the job do actually get
allocated resources on the same node.</p>

<p>In a federation of clusters, a heterogeneous job will execute entirely on
the cluster from which the job is submitted. The heterogeneous job will not
be eligible to migrate between clusters or to have different components of
the job execute on different clusters in the federation.</p>

<p>Caution must be taken when submitting heterogeneous jobs that request
multiple overlapping partitions. When the partitions share the same resources
it's possible to starve your own job by having the first job component request
enough nodes that the scheduler isn't able to fill the subsequent request(s).
Consider an example where you have partition <i>p1</i> that contains 10 nodes
and partition <i>p2</i> that exists on 5 of the same nodes. If you submit a
heterogeneous job that requests 5 nodes in <i>p1</i> and 5 nodes in <i>p2</i>,
the scheduler may try to allocate some of the nodes from the <i>p2</i>
partition for the first job component, preventing the scheduler from being
able to fulfill the second request, resulting in a job that is never able to
start.</p>

<p>Magnetic reservations cannot "attract" heterogeneous jobs - heterogeneous
jobs will only run in magnetic reservations if they explicitly request the
reservation.</p>

<p>Job arrays of heterogeneous jobs are not supported.</p>

<p>The srun command's --no-allocate option is not supported
for heterogeneous jobs.</p>

<p>Only one job step per heterogeneous job component can be launched by a
single srun command (e.g.
"srun --het-group=0 alpha : --het-group=0 beta" is not supported).</p>

<p>The sattach command can only be used to attach to a single component of
a heterogeneous job at a time.</p>

<p>License requests are only allowed on the first component
job (e.g.
"sbatch -L ansys:2 : script.sh").<p>

<p>Heterogeneous jobs are only scheduled by the backfill scheduler plugin.
The more frequently executed scheduling logic only starts jobs on a first-in
first-out (FIFO) basis and lacks logic for concurrently scheduling all
components of a heterogeneous job.</p>

<p>Heterogeneous jobs are not supported on GANG scheduling operations.</p>

<p>Slurm's Perl APIs do not support heterogeneous jobs.</p>

<p>The srun --multi-prog option can not be used to span more than one
heterogeneous job component.</p>

<p>The srun --open-mode option is by default set to "append".</p>

<p>Ancient versions of OpenMPI and their derivatives (i.e. Cray MPI) are
dependent upon communication ports being assigned to them by Slurm. Such MPI
jobs will experience step launch failure if <u>any</u> component of a
heterogeneous job step is unable to acquire the allocated ports.
Non-heterogeneous job steps will retry step launch using a new set of
communication ports (no change in Slurm behavior).</p>
<!-- NOTE: Correcting this would necessitate assigning the same set of ports
to all components of the heterogeneous job (not possible today) plus changes to
srun in order to better synchronize the step startup and error handling. -->

<h2 id="het_steps">Heterogeneous Steps
<a class="slurm_link" href="#het_steps"></a>
</h2>

<p>Slurm version 20.11 introduces the ability to request heterogeneous job
steps from within a non-homogeneous job allocation. This allows you the
flexibility to have different layouts for job steps without requiring the
use of heterogeneous jobs, where having separate jobs for the components
may be undesirable.</p>

<p>Some limitations for heterogeneous steps are that the steps must be able
to run on unique nodes. You also cannot request heterogeneous steps from within
a heterogeneous job.</p>

<p>An example scenario would be if you have a task that needs to use 1 GPU
per processor while another task needs all the available GPUs on a node with
only one processor. This can be accomplished like this:

<pre>
$ salloc -N2 --exclusive --gpus=10
salloc: Granted job allocation 61034
$ srun -N1 -n4 --gpus=4 printenv SLURMD_NODENAME : -N1 -n1 --gpus=6 printenv SLURMD_NODENAME
node02
node01
node01
node01
node01
</pre>

<h2 id="sys_admin">System Administrator Information
<a class="slurm_link" href="#sys_admin"></a>
</h2>

<p>The job submit plugin is invoked independently for each component of a
heterogeneous job.</p>

<p>The spank_init_post_opt() function is invoked once for each component of a
heterogeneous job. This permits site defined options on a per job component
basis.</p>

<p>Scheduling of heterogeneous jobs is performed only by the sched/backfill
plugin and all heterogeneous job components are either all scheduled at the same
time or deferred. The pending reason of heterogeneous jobs isn't set until
backfill evaluation.
In order to ensure the timely initiation of both heterogeneous and
non-heterogeneous jobs, the backfill scheduler alternates between two different
modes on each iteration.
In the first mode, if a heterogeneous job component can not be initiated
immediately, its expected start time is recorded and all subsequent components
of that job will be considered for starting no earlier than the latest
component's expected start time.
In the second mode, all heterogeneous job components will be considered for
starting no earlier than the latest component's expected start time.
After completion of the second mode, all heterogeneous job expected start time
data is cleared and the first mode will be used in the next backfill scheduler
iteration.
Regular (non-heterogeneous jobs) are scheduled independently on each iteration
of the backfill scheduler.</p>

<p> For example, consider a heterogeneous job with three components.
When considered as independent jobs, the components could be initiated at times
now (component 0), now plus 2 hour (component 1), and now plus 1 hours
(component 2).
When the backfill scheduler runs in the first mode:</p>
<ol>
<li>Component 0 will be noted to possible to start now, but not initiated due
to the additional components to be initiated</li>
<li>Component 1 will be noted to be possible to start in 2 hours</li>
<li>Component 2 will not be considered for scheduling until 2 hours in the
future, which leave some additional resources available for scheduling to other
jobs</li>
</ol>

<p>When the backfill scheduler executes next, it will use the second mode and
(assuming no other state changes) all three job components will be considered
available for scheduling no earlier than 2 hours in the future, which may allow
other jobs to be allocated resources before heterogeneous job component 0
could be initiated.</p>

<p>The heterogeneous job start time data will be cleared before the first
mode is used in the next iteration in order to consider system status changes
which might permit the heterogeneous to be initiated at an earlier time than
previously determined.</p>

<p>A resource limit test is performed when a heterogeneous job is submitted in
order to immediately reject jobs that will not be able to start with current
limits.
The individual components of the heterogeneous job are validated, like all
regular jobs.
The heterogeneous job as a whole is also tested, but in a more limited
fashion with respect to quality of service (QOS) limits.
This is due to the complexity of each job component having up to three sets of
limits (association, job QOS and partition QOS).
Note that successful submission of any job (heterogeneous or otherwise) does
not ensure the job will be able to start without exceeding some limit.
For example a job's CPU limit test does not consider that CPUs might not be
allocated individually, but resource allocations might be performed by whole
core, socket or node.
Each component of a heterogeneous job counts as a "job" with respect to
resource limits.</p>

<p>For example, a user might have a limit of 2 concurrent running jobs and submit
a heterogeneous job with 3 components.
Such a situation will have an adverse effect upon scheduling other jobs,
especially other heterogeneous jobs.</p>


<p style="text-align:center;">Last modified 04 January 2024</p>

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