Operating Systems

Operating systems control the overall operation of the computer. It manages and controls tasks such as memory allocation and the running of applications. Applications make requests to the Operating System for services. The operating system then allocates the necessary resources for that application. In high performance computing it is recommended that the operating system be stripped of nonessential processes that use critical memory. Linux variations are the most popular for HPC computing followed by Unix variance and Mac OS X. Microsoft is intending added focus on Windows in high performance computing, but has yet to make a measurable presence in the market.

Mainstream Linux operating systems consist of SCYLD, SUSE, Red Hat, along with other Linux OSs. The primary UNIX operating systems used in High Performance Computing consist of AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, Tru64 UNIX and Solaris.