From owner-freebsd-cluster@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Apr 4 04:31:21 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB76716A4D0 for ; Sun, 4 Apr 2004 04:31:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ipx20050.ipxserver.de (ipx20050.ipxserver.de [80.190.243.49]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FE7B43D54 for ; Sun, 4 Apr 2004 04:31:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from andy@ipx20050.ipxserver.de) Received: from ipx20050.ipxserver.de (localhost.ipxserver.de [IPv6:::1]) by ipx20050.ipxserver.de (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i34BVBCi002935 for ; Sun, 4 Apr 2004 13:31:11 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from andy@localhost) by ipx20050.ipxserver.de (8.12.9/8.12.9/Submit) id i34BUtAh004422 for freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org; Sun, 4 Apr 2004 13:30:55 +0200 (CEST) Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 13:30:55 +0200 From: Andreas Schweitzer To: freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20040404113055.GA2677@ipx20050.ipxserver.de> References: <002401c419e7$76692ac0$2f01a8c0@MICHAELIWZHLNY> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <002401c419e7$76692ac0$2f01a8c0@MICHAELIWZHLNY> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Subject: Re: Request for Cluster Recommendations X-BeenThere: freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Clustering FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 11:31:21 -0000 On Sat, Apr 03, 2004 at 08:52:02PM -0500, Michael McDonald wrote: First of all, it so depends what you want to do with your cluster. It seems you want to perform calculations. Do you have existing codes ? Ask yourself what they need. > I'm looking for recommendations at any level: > hardware: > managed/unmanaged switch? > specific brands/models? You mentioned MPI further down. If you have lots of communication, go for the fastets you can afford, otherwise it wil be the bottleneck. If you have lots of local calculations and an occasional network acces, eveen 100Mbit works. > diskless nodes? > network attached storage > processor speed vs. memory capacity vs. > comm. speed All depends on what you want to do with the cluster If you use NAS, ask yourself how often it will be accessed and how critical the access speed is. Local storage is a big plus if the calculations require static data which can be made available locally or if the calculations require disk storage themselves. And again, even gigabit network will be the bottleneck with todays CPU/disk/memory speeds. > software: > job submission/control We use OpenPBS, but it's quite out of date and requires a bit of hacking to make it run under FreeBSD 5.X. Also Sun Grid Engine seems to work. > node autoconfiguration I use clusterit (in the ports), but it's not "auto" - just convenient configuration - especially for a cluster with only a few nodes. > light, efficient comm. protocols > lam vs. mpich (currently using lam) We use LAM. I would say : test both. Cheers, Andreas Schweitzer