Kb22

Emulab FAQ: Using the Testbed: What if I need more nodes than are free?

For example, say you need 50 nodes but there are only 40 free. In general, getting this many nodes is going to require intervention from Testbed Operations, if only so we can ask other experimenters to free up nodes, if possible. Please send us email if you are not able to able to get the number of nodes you need for your experiment.

Another alternative is to use the Batch System. If your experiment is amenable to being batched (does not require human intervention to start and stop), then you can submit a batch request, which will be serviced when enough nodes become available. Typically, you would start out with a few nodes, getting used to the batch system and creating whatever scripts are needed to make the experiment batchable. Then scale up to larger numbers of nodes. Thats the easiest way of getting a lot of nodes!