							ABSTRACT
							========
                            
FBSNG is a batch system designed for a farm architecture. Traditional batch
system features such as job submission, job queueing, and load balancing are
built into the system.

Major features of FBSNG are:
+  Parallel Batch Jobs:
   FBSNG job is a collection of sections. Each section is an array of
   identical, potentially co-operating, processes running on one or more 
   farm nodes (worker nodes). User may specify conditional dependencies 
   of sections of the same job on one another.

+  Flexible Farm Configuration:
   FBSNG Administrator defines the farm configuration in terms of computational
   resources such as CPU power, disk storage, magnetic tape drives available
   on each farm node (worker node). FBSNG allows unlimited number of
   resources of several types to be defined for the farm.

+  Dynamic Farm Configuration:
   FBSNG Administrator can modify farm configuration using interactive
   configuration utility or GUI without re-starting FBSNG.
   Dynamic farm configuration functionality is also provided through
   FBSNG API.

+  Load Balancing:
   FBSNG requires users to specify amount of resources required for each
   batch process and each section as a whole. Based on such resource
   requirements, current availability of the resources on the farm,
   and other farm configuration parameters, FBSNG Scheduler makes the 
   decision when and where to start the batch process.

+  FBSNG Scheduler:
   FBSNG has fully customizable Scheduler. It allows to be set up
   to achieve a variety of different configurations based on particular
   installation requirements.

+  FBSNG API:
   FBSNG provides Application Programming Interface (API). API allows
   users and administators to develop custom job monitoring, control 
   and farm configuration tools.
   Currently, only Python binding of API is available.

+  Kerberos authentication support:
   FBSNG has an option to use Kerberos for user authentication.
   Also, FBSNG can create Kerberos credentials for batch processes.
