Quoting from the Plan 9 wiki (whose web interface doesn't seem to be functioning at present):
> LEVEL 8: RESEARCH AND COMPUTATION GRIDS WITH CUSTOM CONTROL LAYERS AND UNIQUE > CAPABILITIES > > In its role as a research operating system, the capabilities of Plan > 9 as a distributed system are often extended by specific projects > for specific purposes or to match specific hardware. Plan 9 does not > include any built-in capability for things like task dispatch and > load balancing between nodes. The Plan 9 approach is to provide the > cleanest possible set of supporting abstractions for the creation of > whatever type of high-level clustering you wish to create. Some > examples of research grids with custom software and capabilities: > > * The main Bell Labs Murray Hill installation includes additional > software and extensive location specific configuration > * The [Laboratorio de Sistemas | http://lsub.org] and project > leader Francisco J Ballesteros (Nemo) created Plan B and the > Octopus, derived from Plan 9 and Inferno respectively. > * The [XCPU project | http://xcpu.sourceforge.net] is clustering > software for Plan 9 and other operating systems created at the Los > Alamos National Laboratory > * The [Plan 9 on IBM Blue Gene | > http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/blue_gene] project utilizes special > purpose tools to let Plan 9 control the architecture of the IBM > Blue Gene L. > * The [ANTS | http://ants.9gridchan.org] Advanced Namespace ToolS > are a 9gridchan project for creating failure-tolerant grids and > persistent LAN/WAN user environments. > > These are examples of projects which are built on 9p and the Plan 9 > design and customize or extend the operating system for additional > clustering, task management, and specific purposes. The flexibility > of Plan 9 is one of its great virtues. Most Plan 9 users customize > their setups to a greater or lesser extent with their own scripts or > changes to the default configuration. Even if you aren't aspiring to > build a 20-node "Manta Ray" swarm to challenge Nemo's Octopus, > studying these larger custom systems may help you find useful > customizations for your own system, and the Plan 9 modular design > means that some of the software tools used by these projects are > independently useful.
