Character.ai has developed an internal system called Slonk, which integrates the traditional SLURM scheduler with Kubernetes for managing GPU research clusters. This system aims to provide researchers with the familiar user experience of SLURM, including features like fair queues and gang scheduling, while leveraging Kubernetes for operational benefits such as orchestration, health checks, and autoscaling. Slonk treats SLURM nodes as Kubernetes pods, allowing for efficient resource sharing and management across heterogeneous clusters and clouds. AI
IMPACT Enables more efficient and productive GPU cluster management for ML researchers by combining familiar HPC tools with modern orchestration.
RANK_REASON The article describes an internal infrastructure system for ML research, detailing its architecture and technical challenges, which falls under research and infrastructure development. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=0.7]
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