A method and apparatus improves the block allocation time in a parallel
computer system. A pre-load controller pre-loads blocks of hardware in a
supercomputer cluster in anticipation of demand from a user application.
In the preferred embodiments the pre-load controller determines when to
pre-load the compute nodes and the block size to allocate the nodes based
on pre-set parameters and previous use of the computer system. Further,
in preferred embodiments each block of compute nodes in the parallel
computer system has a stored hardware status to indicate whether the
block is being pre-loaded, or already has been pre-loaded. In preferred
embodiments, the hardware status is stored in a database connected to the
computer's control system. In other embodiments, the compute nodes are
remote computers in a distributed computer system.