HTCondor vs TORQUE Resource Manager

HTCondor is a free high-throughput computing system that coordinates networked machines to run submitted jobs. It finds available machines, matches their resource offers to job requirements and preferences through ClassAds, and can restart a job elsewhere if its current machine becomes unavailable. It is suited to submitting large batches, including thousands of runs across different data sets, and can use otherwise idle machines in a pool. Users do not need login accounts on machines running their jobs; file transfers and split execution support that model. HTCondor can draw on clusters, cloud resources, and international grids, and flocking can connect multiple installations. It supports transfers to and from S3-compatible storage, including Google Cloud Storage through its S3 interoperability API, but not entire buckets or directories. The software is licensed under Apache License 2.0, includes Python bindings, and offers user and administrator guides. Community support is available through a mailing list; paid contract support offers guaranteed resolution and faster turnaround. Security fixes cover current feature and LTS versions, with the previous LTS supported for approximately twelve months after a new LTS release.

TORQUE Resource Manager is an open-source resource and queue manager for compute clusters, based on the original PBS resource manager. The project is free, with Linux, macOS, API and self-hosted options. TORQUE 4.0 release notes state that it can support clusters with more than 15,000 compute nodes; that release also introduced a multithreaded pbs_server intended to improve command response and job throughput. An optional MOM hierarchy can reduce update traffic from compute nodes to pbs_server and lets administrators manage network communication. In version 4.0, component communication moved to TCP/IP, removing UDP and RPP. The trqauthd daemon authorizes client connections to pbs_server and must run as root on client hosts. Linux builds can optionally use control groups and cpusets, and documentation describes integration with Moab Workload Manager. The project is built from source using configure and make; installation instructions also cover RPM and self-extracting package creation. Its license terms are in the repository's PBS_License.txt. A compatibility caveat for version 4.0 is that its components cannot communicate with earlier TORQUE versions, so rolling upgrades will not work.