Unicos
Encyclopedia
UNICOS is the name of a range of Unix-like
operating system
variants developed by Cray for its supercomputer
s. UNICOS is the successor of the Cray Operating System
(COS). It provides network clustering
and source code compatibility layer
s for some other Unixes. UNICOS was originally introduced in 1985 with the Cray-2
system and later ported to other Cray models. The original UNICOS was based on UNIX System V Release 2
, and had numerous BSD
features (e.g., networking and file system enhancements) added to it.
CX-OS was the original name given to what is now UNICOS. This was a prototype system which ran on a Cray X-MP
in 1984 before the Cray-2 port. It was used to demonstrate the feasibility of using Unix
on a supercomputer system, prior to the availability of Cray-2 hardware.
The operating system revamp was part of a larger movement inside Cray Research to modernize their corporate software: including rewriting their most important Fortran
compiler (cft
to cft77) in a higher-level language (Pascal
) with more modern optimizations and vectorizations.
As a migration path for existing COS customers wishing to transition to UNICOS, a Guest Operating System capability was introduced into COS. The only guest operating system that was ever supported was UNICOS. A COS batch job would be submitted to start up UNICOS, which would then run as a subsystem under COS - using a subset of the systems CPUs, memory, and peripheral devices. The UNICOS that ran under GOS was exactly the same as when it ran stand-alone - the difference was that the kernel would make certain low-level hardware requests through the COS GOS hook, rather than directly to the hardware.
One of the sites that ran very early versions of UNICOS was Bell Labs
, where Unix pioneers including Dennis Ritchie
ported parts of their Eighth Edition Unix
(including stream I/O
) to UNICOS. They also experimented with a guest facility within UNICOS, allowing the stand-alone version of the OS to host itself.
Unix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
variants developed by Cray for its supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s. UNICOS is the successor of the Cray Operating System
Cray Operating System
The Cray Operating System was Cray Research's proprietary operating system for its Cray-1 and Cray X-MP supercomputers, and those platforms' main OS until replaced by UNICOS in the late 1980s...
(COS). It provides network clustering
Cluster (computing)
A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely thus in many respects forming a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks...
and source code compatibility layer
Compatibility layer
A compatibility layer is a term that refers to components that allow for non-native support of components.In software engineering, a compatibility layer allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates system calls for the foreign system into native system...
s for some other Unixes. UNICOS was originally introduced in 1985 with the Cray-2
Cray-2
The Cray-2 was a four-processor ECL vector supercomputer made by Cray Research starting in 1985. It was the fastest machine in the world when it was released, replacing the Cray Research X-MP designed by Steve Chen in that spot...
system and later ported to other Cray models. The original UNICOS was based on UNIX System V Release 2
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
, and had numerous BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
features (e.g., networking and file system enhancements) added to it.
CX-OS was the original name given to what is now UNICOS. This was a prototype system which ran on a Cray X-MP
Cray X-MP
The Cray X-MP was a supercomputer designed, built and sold by Cray Research. It was announced in 1982 as the "cleaned up" successor to the 1975 Cray-1, and was the world's fastest computer from 1983 to 1985...
in 1984 before the Cray-2 port. It was used to demonstrate the feasibility of using Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
on a supercomputer system, prior to the availability of Cray-2 hardware.
The operating system revamp was part of a larger movement inside Cray Research to modernize their corporate software: including rewriting their most important Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
compiler (cft
CFT
The three-letter abbreviation CFT may refer to:*-2β-Carbomethoxy-3β-tropane*California Federation of Teachers*Cardholder Funds Transfer*Cefatrizine*Chichester Festival Theatre*Class field theory*Classical field theory...
to cft77) in a higher-level language (Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
) with more modern optimizations and vectorizations.
As a migration path for existing COS customers wishing to transition to UNICOS, a Guest Operating System capability was introduced into COS. The only guest operating system that was ever supported was UNICOS. A COS batch job would be submitted to start up UNICOS, which would then run as a subsystem under COS - using a subset of the systems CPUs, memory, and peripheral devices. The UNICOS that ran under GOS was exactly the same as when it ran stand-alone - the difference was that the kernel would make certain low-level hardware requests through the COS GOS hook, rather than directly to the hardware.
One of the sites that ran very early versions of UNICOS was Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
, where Unix pioneers including Dennis Ritchie
Dennis Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie , was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era." He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the UNIX operating system...
ported parts of their Eighth Edition Unix
Version 8 Unix
Eighth Edition Unix, also known as Version 8 Unix or V8, was a version of the Research Unix operating system developed and used internally at Bell Labs and a select number of universities. It was "released" in February 1985, ran on VAX hardware, and was a variant of 4.1cBSD with some System V.1 ...
(including stream I/O
STREAMS
In computer networking, STREAMS is the native framework in Unix System V for implementing character devices.STREAMS was designed as a modular architecture for implementing full-duplex I/O between kernel or user space processes and device drivers. Its most frequent uses have been in developing...
) to UNICOS. They also experimented with a guest facility within UNICOS, allowing the stand-alone version of the OS to host itself.
Variants
Cray have released several different OSs under the name UNICOS, including:- UNICOS: the original Cray Unix, based on System V. Used on the Cray-1Cray-1The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history...
, Cray-2Cray-2The Cray-2 was a four-processor ECL vector supercomputer made by Cray Research starting in 1985. It was the fastest machine in the world when it was released, replacing the Cray Research X-MP designed by Steve Chen in that spot...
, X-MPCray X-MPThe Cray X-MP was a supercomputer designed, built and sold by Cray Research. It was announced in 1982 as the "cleaned up" successor to the 1975 Cray-1, and was the world's fastest computer from 1983 to 1985...
, Y-MPCray Y-MPThe Cray Y-MP was a supercomputer sold by Cray Research from 1988, and the successor to the company's X-MP. The Y-MP retained software compatibility with the X-MP, but extended the address registers from 24 to 32 bits. High-density VLSI ECL technology was used and a new liquid cooling system was...
, C90Cray C90The Cray C90 series was a vector processor supercomputer launched by Cray Research in 1991. The C90 was a development of the Cray Y-MP architecture. Compared to the Y-MP, the C90 processor had a dual vector pipeline and a faster 4.1 ns clock cycle , which together gave three times the...
, etc. - UNICOS MAX: a Mach-based microkernelMicrokernelIn computer science, a microkernel is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system . These mechanisms include low-level address space management, thread management, and inter-process communication...
used on the T3DCray T3DThe T3D was Cray Research's first attempt at a massively parallel supercomputer architecture. Launched in 1993, it also marked Cray's first use of another company's microprocessor. The T3D consisted of between 32 and 2048 Processing Elements , each comprising a 150 MHz DEC Alpha 21064 ...
's processing elements, in conjunction with UNICOS on the host Y-MP or C90 system. - UNICOS/mk: a "serverized" version of UNICOS using the ChorusChorusOSChorusOS is a microkernel real-time operating system designed for embedded systems. Sun Microsystems acquired Chorus Systèmes, the company which created ChorusOS, in 1997. Sun no longer supports ChorusOS. The founders of Chorus Systems started a new company called Jaluna in August 2002. Jaluna has...
microkernelMicrokernelIn computer science, a microkernel is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system . These mechanisms include low-level address space management, thread management, and inter-process communication...
to make a distributed operating systemDistributed operating systemA distributed operating system is the logical aggregation of operating system software over a collection of independent, networked, communicating, and spatially disseminated computational nodes. Individual system nodes each hold a discrete software subset of the global aggregate operating system...
. Used on the T3ECray T3EThe Cray T3E was Cray Research's second-generation massively parallel supercomputer architecture, launched in late November 1995. The first T3E was installed at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center in 1996. Like the previous Cray T3D, it was a fully distributed memory machine using a 3D torus...
. This was the last Cray OS really based on UNICOS sources, as the following products were based on different sources and simply used the "UNICOS" name. - UNICOS/mp: not derived from UNICOS, but based on IRIXIRIXIRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS file system.The last major version...
6.5. Used on the X1Cray X1The Cray X1 is a non-uniform memory access, vector processor supercomputer manufactured and sold by Cray Inc. since 2003. The X1 is often described as the unification of the Cray T90, Cray SV1, and Cray T3E architectures into a single machine...
. - UNICOS/lc: not derived from UNICOS, but based on SuSE Linux. Used on the XT3Cray XT3The Cray XT3 is a distributed memory massively parallel MIMD supercomputer designed by Cray Inc. with Sandia National Laboratories under the codename Red Storm. Cray turned the design into a commercial product in 2004...
, XT4Cray XT4The Cray XT4 is an updated version of the Cray XT3 supercomputer. It was released on November 18, 2006. It includes an updated version of the SeaStar interconnect router called SeaStar2, processor sockets for Socket AM2 Opteron processors, and 240-pin unbuffered DDR2 memory...
and XT5Cray XT5The Cray XT5 is an updated version of the Cray XT4 supercomputer, launched on November 6, 2007. It includes a faster version of the XT4's SeaStar2 interconnect router called SeaStar2+, and can be configured either with XT4 compute blades, which have four dual-core AMD Opteron processor sockets, or...
. UNICOS/lc 1.x comprises a combination of the Catamount microkernel (based on Cougar, used on the ASCI RedASCI RedASCI Red was the first computer built under the Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative . ASCI Red was built by Intel and installed at Sandia in late 1996. The design was based on the Intel Paragon computer...
system) running on the compute elements, and SuSE Linux running on the service elements. In UNICOS/lc 2.0, Catamount is replaced by a customized Linux kernelLinux kernelThe Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
, called Compute Node LinuxCompute Node LinuxCompute Node Linux is a runtime environment based on the Linux kernel for the Cray XT3, Cray XT4, Cray XT5, Cray XT6, and Cray XE6 supercomputer systems based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. CNL forms part of the UNICOS/lc operating system from release 2.0 onwards...
(CNL). From release 2.1 onwards, UNICOS/lc is now called Cray Linux Environment (CLE).
External links
- UNICOS 10.0.1.1 Release Overview
- UNICOS/mk 2.0.6 Release Overview
- UNICOS/mp 3.1 Release Overview
- Cray XT System Software Release Overview
- Cray operating system section in Fred Gannett's Cray FAQ
- Experiences with the Cray X/MP by Dennis RitchieDennis RitchieDennis MacAlistair Ritchie , was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era." He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the UNIX operating system...