[Condor-users] How to slip in later-submitted jobs

["Finch, Ralph" <rfinch@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

condor -version
$CondorVersion: 6.8.3 Jan  5 2007 $
$CondorPlatform: INTEL-WINNT50 $

We have about 15 Windows XP machines, all dual- or quad-processors in
our Condor pool.  The pool has been working well for a couple of years
but now we'd like new functionality.  I'll describe it with an example
scenario:


Joe submits a few hundred runs, each one will take 1 to 3 days to
finish.  These take up all the unclaimed machines (cpus) and of course
lot's of Joe's jobs are queued. (I will use "machine" and "cpu"
interchangably here).

Sally an hour after Joe submits just 5 jobs, also taking 1 to 3 days to
finish.  She would like at least equal chance or priority as Joe for her
jobs to claim cpus as they become available.  And ideally she would like
her jobs to have a higher priority for claiming newlly available
machines, and even suspending Joe's jobs while actively running hers.
The latter would mean Condor would see an oversupply of jobs on a given
cpu (for example 1 suspended job and 1 running job on a cpu).

We have trusted users, that is, they can be trusted to accurately
indicate their job priorities on the command line when they submit them
if that helps Condor.  Or maybe Condor can use the number of jobs as a
hint for priority.  I can upgrade Condor to a later version if
necessary.

Questions:

1.  Will Condor now, without any further condor_config editing, give
Sally's jobs equal priority with Joe's jobs in competition for newly
available machines?
2.  Is it possible for Condor to give Sally's jobs a higher priority
*just for this submittal*?  We don't want Sally's jobs to always have
higher priority just because she is Sally, only because she indicates
they need higher priority somehow.
3.  Is it possible for Condor to suspend a job and run another job on a
single machine?

Thanks,

Ralph Finch, P.E.
California Dept. of Water Resources
Delta Modeling Section, Bay-Delta Office
Room 215-13
1416 9th Street
Sacramento CA  95814
916-653-7552
rfinch@xxxxxxxxxxxx