Univa Updates Grid Engine Platform

Univa, a data center workload optimization company, has updated its Univa Grid Engine, including increased functionality. The update, according to the company, also gives users the ability to pause workload services or containers in the system when needed.

This Preemption feature can set priorities for certain jobs so that higher priority work can be completed even if other jobs are stopped. When used in conjunction with Univa’s Universal Resource Broker, users can access and optimize shared resources as needed. Resource modification has also been added to the Grid Engine.

“Electronics design companies (chip designers, EDA) often face this dilemma,” says Bill Bryce, vice president of Products at Univa, “They use expensive software licenses to design, test, and analyze their work, thus it is critical that the most important applications are using the software licenses first before all other applications. At the same time they cannot have the licenses waiting around, resulting in expensive inefficiencies. So when high priority applications need the licenses, instead of losing work, they preempt the lower priority workload, freeing up resources and limited licenses, thus balancing the need to maximize utilization of licenses with the critical path projects. You could liken the function to a home DVR system, where users can be confident that if they pause one program to watch another they will always be able to come back to finish the first.”

For more information, visit Univa.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.