About Project Kusu

Project Kusu is the open source base for the next generation of Platform Open Cluster Stack 5 (OCS). It is designed from the ground up with the following goals in mind:

• Simplified cluster management, operation and deployment
• Support for multiple Linux Distributions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Fedora, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, OpenSuSE and Ubuntu Linux
• Modular and hybrid stack that transparently integrates open source and commercial software into a single consistent cluster operating environment
• Standards-based, open and vendor-certified

Documentation

Documentation is available here.

Blog

Read about our progress, adventures and struggles on our blog.

What does Kusu mean?

The Open Source Grid Development Center (OSGDC) team, being based in Singapore, thought that it would be fitting to have a project whose name is uniquely Singaporean. Hence it is called Kusu.

An excerpt from Wikipedia regarding Kusu Island:

Kusu Island is located to the south of the main island of Singapore, off the Straits of Singapore. The name means "Tortoise Island" or "Turtle Island" in Chinese; the island is also known as Peak Island or Pulau Tembakul in Malay. From 2 tiny outcrops on a reef, the island was enlarged and transformed into an island holiday resort of 85,000 square metres. The island is 5.6 km south of the main island of Singapore.

Legend has it that a magical tortoise turned itself into an island to save two shipwrecked sailors - a Malay and a Chinese. The two men gave thanks according to his belief system, the former by building a Muslim kramat (keramat) (shrine), and the latter by establishing a Taoist shrine. Each year during the ninth lunar month (which falls between Sep and Nov according to the Lunar Calendar), thousands of devotees flock to the island for their annual Kusu Pilgrimage to pay homage for good health, peace, happiness, good luck and prosperity.

Why are we creating yet another Cluster Toolkit?

The OSGDC team has many years of experience writing software for building and managing clusters. Over the years we have tried various toolkits with good and bad results. We have always had our own ideas of what a cluster software stack should be and the OSGDC gives us the opportunity to 'not just talk, but actually do something about it'. We feel that HPC clusters should be for everyone, they should be easy to build, use and maintain over time. HPC clusters are not just for research and academia they can be used in all industries from Pharmaceuticals to making a good pint of Guinness Fluent. Our ultimate goal is to provide a Cluster Toolkit with a set of configured software that installs and works out of the box with home-grown and commerical applications that can be used by 'non HPC' users and administrators. If you would like to help us in this great project please see the Contribution section below.

Downloads

You will find stable releases, development releases and builds here.

Developer's Corner

We use Subversion for Project Kusu. Our repository provides read-only access to the public and selective commit rights. See our Developer's Corner for more information.

Support and Bugs

Support for Kusu is handled by our mailing list: Kusu-users.

Because we know that no software is bug free, we encourage you report any bugs that you may encounter. This makes Kusu better for all of us. Bugs can be filed at our bug tracking system.

We also have a regular maintenance schedule for our infrastructure, and keep Incident records.

Join Us

We currently have positions available at OSGDC. If you are talented and have the passion for open-source projects, we invite you to join our team in Singapore. Come and be a part of a NEW DEVELOPMENT CENTER focused on developing a new generation of cluster and grid computing tools.