Scenario: Policies You Can Enforce With Job Templates

Applies To: Windows HPC Server 2008

Job templates are required to submit jobs. A default job template is provided; however, if you want to define custom submission policies for you cluster, you can create additional job templates.

A job template contains:

• An access control list (ACL) that defines the users who have permission to submit jobs using the job template.

• A list of job properties and associated value settings. For each property, the administrator can define:

  • Default values

  • Value constraints

For more information about job template properties, see Appendix 4: Job Template Properties.

Policies you can enforce with job templates

A job template allows you to associate a set of default values and value constraints for job properties with a particular set of users. Examples of policies that you can enforce with job templates include:

• Enforce run time and size limits on jobs

• Limit job priority for different users or job types

• Send different types of jobs to different sets of nodes

• Partition the cluster for different user groups

• Define which types of jobs can or cannot be preempted

• Define which types of jobs can enable job exclusivity

• Simplify job submission for the user

• Customize the job submission process to support different user scenarios

Note

Advanced policies may require the use of custom job submission or job activation filters. For example, you may need a custom filter if you want to: change job property values, check for extended options (new job properties that were created by editing the job schema), or check for the availability of licenses. For more information, see Creating and Installing Job Submission and Activation Filters in Windows HPC Server 2008 Step-by-Step Guide.

This guide includes an example of how to create a job template that partitions a group of nodes for a specific group of users. For more information, see Steps: Partitioning a Group of Nodes for a Group of Users.