HPC systems require shared filesystems to function effectively. Two really good choices for both small and large systems are NFS and SSHFS.

With some simple tuning, SSHFS performance is comparable to NFS almost across the board. In an effort to get even more performance from SSHFS, we examine SSHFS-MUX, which allows you to combine directories from multiple servers into a single mountpoint.

For Linux admins, SSH is one the most important tools of remote administration. SSH also works in Windows, with tools such as PuTTY or WinSSH, MobaXterm, WinSCP, or Swish.

Using a Tablet as a portable management console makes sense but could make you too accessible.

Setting up a real-world HPC cluster with Kickstart, SSH, Son of Grid Engine, and other free tools.