Cluster Set Up

We are currently working on automating some of the steps to deploy the Illuminator on a Raspberry Pi cluster. The main idea of this line of development is to simplify the number of steps required to install and enable simulations, after the networking of the cluster is completed. The following are some of the goals we will like to achieve:

  1. Installation: it shall be possible to install the ‘Illuminator’ on each client and server with a single command on the terminal. For example: pip install illuminator. This will remove the burden of copying the source code to to each client and server imposed by the current implementation. Achieving this will make goal (2) more feasible.

  2. Model accessibility: it shall be possible for the server to run models in any client by using the lxterminal command, with a command such as: lxterminal -e ssh illuminator@192.168.0.1 'illuminator cluster run <model-name> --remote'. Where the --remote flag must tell Mosaik that the simulation will run in a distributed environment (cluster). In the current implementation, one has to specified the path to the Python file containing the model (usually a directoy on the client). However, that is harder to maintain because new versions of the Illuminator rely on the source code and not on Python wheels or TARs. Therefore, the focus here should be on making sure that once the Illuminator is installed to the Python path, then all models are accessible at the OS level and they can be run in remote model.

  3. Business logic for cluster scenarios: shall develop the business logic to use the information in (connect) in the scenario configuration file to start simulators on the clienst; such that, for example, calling illuminator cluster <scenario.yaml> reads on which client a model should be started, and start the relevant simulators on that client and runs the simulation.

Note

The ideas above can be use by contributors to participate in the development of Illuminator. Better ideas and solutions always welcome. Please contact the Illuminator Development Team if you want to contribute.