Workflow: Connecting to an IBM Spectrum LSF cluster

Ian Balanzá-Davis

If you have an LSF cluster, you can connect to it using Altair Analytics Workbench and distribute workloads from your workflow files. To setup the connection you need to:

1. Select the Altair menu select Link then click New Remote Host Connection to display the New Server Connection window.
2. Select New IBM Spectrum LSF Connection (4.3 and later) then click Next
3. Enter the master hostname, port number and user name into LSF Submission Host, Port Number and User name fields respectively. You can use the Verify button to ensure the hostname is correct. 
4. If required, click Next and change the home and root directories of the master host to a more appropriate directory, then click Finish to create an LSF root node in Link Explorer
5. Right click the LSF root node and select Properties to open a Properties window.
6. Select the Workflow Properties tab and in the Temporary file path field, enter a path in which every execution host in the LSF cluster has access. Click OK.
7. Right click the LSF root node and select New Engine to open the New Remote Engine window
8. In the Base Altair SLC install directory, enter the installation directory on an execution host and ensure the Automatically select execution host on startup option is checked. Then click Finish.

   

9. Right click the new engine and select Set as default engine.

A new Altair SLC engine is created under the LSF root node representing the WPS process on the selected execution host. When using this engine, execution hosts are selected based on available resources upon starting the server.