Environment Modules (http://modules.sourceforge.net/) or the more modern derivatives are pretty darn universal in cluster environments where a shared filesystem can be used to host an application/tools tree. Do one install and one module file and it's instantly available across the cluster. Does a great job of allowing you to host and offer many different versions/permutations of the same application.
After that you get less universal and odder more DIY setups. Some groups will roll software into custom .rpm, .pkg or .deb packages depending on their OS and will do all of their custom/internal software as binary packages hosted on a central app repository server. Lots of hacks involving passwordless SSH scripts run on remote nodes to replicate files or dump/unpack a tarball representing a tool.
And finally the cool DevOps kids are using Puppet, Chef, SaltStack, Ansible, Cfengine, etc. configuration management / orchestration toolkits -- those are often overkill for simple software installs but they *excel* at maintaining and managing configuration states across many different systems. If your entire cluster is Puppetized one could easily come up with a puppet-based method for installing or managing the installation of software
My $.02 of course Trevor Gale wrote:
Hello all, I was wondering what solutions other use for easy software installation across clusters. Is there any method that is generally accepted to be the most effective for making sure that all the software is consistent across each node? Thanks, Trevor ___________
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