Introduction

xCAT is a cluster management tool originally developed at IBM and now Open Source. xCAT v1 was rewritten with much of the same functionality but a new architecture and code base to make v2. The old half-free license from IBM has been dropped and v2 is true OSS with an Eclipse license. IBM is deprecating xCAT v1 and their other (proprietary) cluster tool CSM and doing new cluster deliveries with xCAT.

xCAT and ROCKS perform many of the same functions. In general xCAT is more flexible and more of a hands-on tool, where ROCKS is regimented or automated and hands-off. Of course, our use (abuse?) of ROCKS is very much a hands-on operation.

References

• XCatMain old MSU pages on xCAT (version 1)
• http://xcat.sourceforge.net/

Local Pages

• MSU Install Notes XCatMSUInstall

-- TomRockwell - 05 Sep 2009