Portable Batch System
Portable Batch System (or simply PBS) is the name of computer software that performs job scheduling. Its primary task is to allocate computational tasks, i.e., batch jobs, among the available computing resources. It is often used in conjunction with UNIX cluster environments.
PBS is supported as a job scheduler mechanism by several meta schedulers including Moab by Cluster Resources (which became Adaptive Computing Enterprises Inc.)[1] and GRAM (Grid Resource Allocation Manager), a component of the Globus Toolkit.
History and versions
PBS was originally developed for NASA under a contract project that began on June 17, 1991. The main contractor who developed the original code was MRJ Technology Solutions. MRJ was acquired by Veridian in the late 1990s. Altair Engineering acquired the rights to all the PBS technology and intellectual property from Veridian in 2003. Altair Engineering currently owns and maintains the intellectual property associated with PBS, and also employs the original development team from NASA.
The following versions of PBS are currently available:
- OpenPBS — original open source version released by MRJ in 1998 (not actively developed)
- TORQUE — a fork of OpenPBS that is maintained by Adaptive Computing Enterprises, Inc. (formerly Cluster Resources, Inc.)
- PBS Professional (PBS Pro) — the commercial version of PBS offered by Altair Engineering
License
The license for PBS derived programs can be found here
Until December 31, 2001, PBS and derivative programs (OpenPBS) did not meet the Open Source Initiative's definition of open source, namely, the license prohibition of commercial redistribution of the software. Up to that date, use of these programs also required registration at the OpenPBS website.
As of December 31, 2001, the registration and no commercial use clauses expired.