HFSS15: HPC Job Templates

The job templates are managed by the Windows HPC cluster administrator. Every cluster has at least one job template, the "Default" job template. Every job has an associated job template. If no job template is specified, then the "Default" job template is used. The job template controls two related aspects of the job submission process. When a job is submitted, there are a number of job parameters which may be specified. Each parameter has a set of valid values. For example, the Priority parameter has five valid values, Highest, AboveNormal, Normal, BelowNormal, and Lowest. The job template controls the default value of each parameter; this is the value that the parameter has if it is not specifically overridden by the submitter. For example, in the Default job template, the default value of the Priority parameter is Normal. The job template may also limit the allowed values of each parameter to a subset of the valid values. For example, a job template for privileged users could allow all five Priority values, which a job template for unprivileged users could limit the allowed Priority values to Normal, BelowNormal and Lowest.

Each job template is a Windows object with access controlled by an ACL (access control list). Instead of the usual "Read" or "Read & Execute" permissions, there is a "Submit Job" permission which corresponds to the right to submit a job with this job template. The cluster administrator may create job templates to limit or control access to cluster resources. For example, a job template with limited allowed job run times, or access to a limited set of compute nodes could be created by the cluster administrator. Specific users or user groups could be forced to use this limited job template by omitting access to the other job templates or by adding a deny access entry for the specified user or group to the other job templates. See the Windows HPC Server 2008 Job Templates white paper from Microsoft for additional details:

http://resourcekit.windowshpc.net/MORE_INFO/Windows_HPC_Server_2008_Job_Templates_White_Paper.html

Job templates may also be created to allow users to run jobs with limited knowledge of the appropriate job parameters. The cluster administrator creates a job template which has reasonable default values for the type of job to be run, and informs users which job template to use for each type of job. The template could also limit some parameters to only the subset of all values that are useful for the type of job associated with the template.