Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:05:28 -0600 From: Jason Bacon <jwbacon@tds.net> To: Nilton Jose Rizzo <rizzo@i805.com.br> Cc: freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org Subject: Re: some informations to beginner in cluster Message-ID: <400470FA-59EF-41EA-8E3C-CDF4F652E40C@uwm.edu> In-Reply-To: <20100130035458.M44249@i805.com.br> References: <20100130035458.M44249@i805.com.br>
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I would guess you've already found these links, but if not: http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/bsdcon2003/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DBpsRb9fJ4Ds A few things I would add: At its core, I think FreeBSD is an ideal OS for clusters. It's faster =20= and more stable than any other OS I've worked with. In my past life I managed about 30 Linux workstations using a wide =20 variety of hardware and several large servers for fMRI research. The =20= expected uptime of the Linux workstations varied from about a week to =20= infinity. We experienced frequent dropped connections on long-running =20= file transfers. The Linux NFS servers frequently froze up under =20 heavy load. I reproduced all these problems over several different =20 Linux distributions running kernels from 2.2 through early 2.6. I decided to try FreeBSD on the servers, and they never crashed =20 again. In the several years I remained there, they only went down for =20= upgrades and power outages. I eventually rolled FreeBSD out to the =20 workstations, and most of them never crashed again (unless there was a =20= hardware problem, someone force-ejected a DVDRAM, etc.) This is not to put Linux down, it's just pointing out that FreeBSD =20 worked better for us in an environment where maximum stability was =20 critical. We had researchers routinely running analysis jobs for =20 weeks or months, and moving datasets of 20 or 30 gigabytes to and from =20= the fileservers. FreeBSD's stability made all this run smoothly and =20 prevented a lot of setbacks in the research. Based on this =20 experience, I would have a lot of confidence in FreeBSD as a cluster =20 platform. That said, Linux has its place as well. If I were going to fill a =20 school computer lab with general-use desktop machines for development, =20= Internet, etc., I would lean toward Ubuntu at this point for ease of =20 setup and maintenance. Having to reboot them once a month isn't going =20= to pose a problem in that environment. The "obvious" advantage of Linux for clusters is availability of more =20= applications, although FreeBSD can run most Linux applications. I've =20= run Matlab versions 6.5, 7.3, and now 7.7 for Linux on FreeBSD. I've =20= seen reports of people running Mathematica and other apps. Matlab =20 7.7.0 works very well on FreeBSD 8.0, Java desktop and all. I have a =20= mostly functional port for it at http://personalpages.tds.net/=20 ~jwbacon. There's also a port called "cluster-installer" under =20 development to help automate the setup of a FreeBSD cluster. You =20 should be able to use it to set up a small FreeBSD cluster in about =20 half a day. ( Note that there's a bug in the Ganglia port for which I =20= have submitted a PR. Check it out before attempting to set up =20 Ganglia. ) I've started working on ports for DL_POLY and Lava =20 (although the latter is low priority given that Sun Grid Engine and =20 Torque are already in the ports tree). Good luck, -J On Jan 29, 2010, at 10:05 PM, Nilton Jose Rizzo wrote: > > Hi all, > > I`m work with FreeBSD some year, on servers ( http, smtp,smb =20 > and other > thinks), now I`ll work with cluster to parallel computing. My =20 > BigBoss should > be install Linux, but I would like to install FreeBSD, but I not =20 > have idea > or correct point to start. I look for in google, and some =20 > references talk > about Beowulf cluster. Is this only struct? Have differents about =20= > perfomance > with work diskless struct and non-diskless? Is FreeBSD ready to =20 > work with > parallel computing? > > Please, send me links to white pappers or posts or one start =20 > point. > > TIA, > --=20 > Nilton Jos=E9 Rizzo > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-cluster > To unsubscribe, send any mail to = "freebsd-cluster-unsubscribe@freebsd.org=20 > " =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D Jason Bacon Systems Programmer / Instructor University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee bacon@uwm.edu =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D
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