Introduction to IBM Spectrum Symphony

Learn about IBM® Spectrum Symphony.

IBM Spectrum Symphony is enterprise-class software that distributes and virtualizes compute-intensive application services and processes across existing heterogeneous IT resources. IBM Spectrum Symphony creates a shared, scalable, and fault-tolerant infrastructure, delivering faster, more reliable application performance while reducing cost.

IBM Spectrum Symphony provides an application framework that allows you to run distributed or parallel applications in a scaled-out grid environment:

Flow diagram of Platform Symphony, showing an application framework that runs distributed or parallel applications in a scled-out grid environment

Cluster

A cluster is a logical grouping of hosts that provides a distributed environment in which to run applications.

Symphony

IBM Spectrum Symphony manages the resources and the workload in the cluster. Using IBM Spectrum Symphony, resources are virtualized: IBM Spectrum Symphony dynamically and flexibly assigns resources, provisioning them and making them available for applications to use.

IBM Spectrum Symphony can assign resources to an application on demand when the work is submitted, or assignment can be predetermined and preconfigured.

Application

An IBM Spectrum Symphony service-oriented application uses a client-service architecture. It consists of two programs: the client, which provides the client logic to submit work, retrieve and process results, and the service, which comprises the business logic (the computation). The service-oriented application uses parallel processing to accelerate computations.

IBM Spectrum Symphony receives requests to run applications from a client. IBM Spectrum Symphony manages the scheduling and running of the work; the client need not be concerned with where the application runs.

Client

The client sends compute requests and collects results using the IBM Spectrum Symphony client APIs. The client may run on a machine that is part of the cluster, or it may run on a machine that is outside of the cluster.

The client can use a service without knowledge of what programming language was used to create the service.

The client submits an input data request to IBM Spectrum Symphony. IBM Spectrum Symphony initiates the service that processes the client requests, receives results from the service, and passes the results back to the client.

Service

The service is a self-contained business function that accepts requests from a client, performs a computation, and returns responses to the client.

The service uses computing resources, and must be deployed to the cluster. Multiple instances of a service can run concurrently in the cluster.

The service is initiated and run by IBM Spectrum Symphony, upon receipt of a client request. The service runs on a machine that is part of the IBM Spectrum Symphony cluster. The service runs on the cluster resources dynamically provisioned by IBM Spectrum Symphony. IBM Spectrum Symphony monitors the running of the service, and passes the results back to the client.