On Tue, 26 Sep 2006, Angel Dimitrov wrote:
Hello, I have some experience of running of numerical weather models on clusters. Is there many clients for processor time? As I saw the biggest supercomputers in the World are very busy! I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to setup a commercial cluster. Intel are planning for new processors - two CPUs each with quad cores. Two such machines will have power like one 50 GHz CPU:-) Any ideas and comments are welcome!
I'm jumping in briefly and late -- it's been tried before unsuccessfully as already noted. The REASON that is tends to be unsuccessful has to do with the nature of the beowulf model, though. In order to succeed you'd need just the right mix of clients. They'd have to have: * Infrequent but large computational needs. Infrequent because if they were frequent it will always be cheaper for them to build and run their own cluster. Large because otherwise you don't NEED a cluster. * No computational infrastructure to speak of already. The marginal cost of adding a cluster to an EXISTING server room is pretty much the cost of the machines, space, power and cooling, and you cannot retail these to somebody for what this would cost them in existing facilities and make money. Their economies of scale are the same as yours, but they don't have to pay your salary and profit. * Sufficient computational expertise to use parallel programs or large scale compute clusters in the first place, with the SMALL exception of preexisting commercial code. This requirement is nearly orthogonal to the first two, note -- you're now looking for a compute hacker god parallel programmer who has big needs, rarely and no server room. * No ready access to money to build their own cluster and infrastructure from the ground up. Growth equals power in most of these arenas, politically -- if the IT department rents compute facilities, they are less important and easier to replace. The number of potential customers who get through this gauntlet are few, and they are more likely to seek help from cluster consultants who make the cost of entry even lower -- they'll basically build you a cluster, install software on it for you, and run it for you and can almost certainly eat your lunch since they are perfectly capable of and happy to set up a cluster in THEIR server room for some client if the money is right. There may well be companies in this space, in other words, but renting out a cluster is incidental and done per client in such a way that the client can always take over ownership and as much of management as they like. They don't DEPEND on this market only for bread and butter. Note that any of these needs ALSO apply in webspace or the ASP marketplace, but the difference is that there there are many commercial apps and that those apps are used by companies with little to no local infrastructure beyond a web drop and a network of e.g. Windows boxes. No need for any sort of computational expertise or (really) significant compute resources. And at that, ASP or offsite server setup with an ISP tends to be "expensive" compared to anything BUT hiring your own systems staff... rgb
Angel __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
-- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
