Glossary
Terminology/Glossary
Cluster The entire group of servers: head/administrative node, login nodes, and compute nodes
Node Computer or server
Host Synonym for node
Compute node Node used only for running jobs. Direct logins are allowed if the user has jobs currently running on the node, to allow for monitoring.
Execute host Synonym for compute node
Login node Node allowing direct logins, used for interactive sessions (coding, analysis, job control)
Slot CPU core. A parallel job requests a parallel environment with some number of slots.
Scheduler Software which controls order in which jobs execute, and which resources are assigned to the jobs. Picotte uses Slurm
Nodes, CPUs, Sockets, Cores
A node is what is generally thought of as a computer. It is a metal and plastic box, with a power switch and various ports (USB, video, network). It weighs several pounds.
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) or "Processor" is the "brain" of the node. It performs the (logical, mathematical) operations of computation.
The CPU is installed on a motherboard: a circuit board inside the node. The motherboard has attachments for memory (RAM), and extension cards (GPUs, audio processors, etc). The CPU is installed into one or more sockets on the motherboard. This is an interface which allows for easy installation and removal of the CPU without soldering.
The CPU itself may have one or more processing cores. Each core can perform operations independently of the other cores, although they may share data.
See this post at StackOverflow for detail.[1]
