Sod all this tin pot stuff. Buying all this crap, sticking it in a rack and stringing it together with wire aint difficult. Making the damn software work is the tricky bit.
Get loads of ram, vmware-server and BINGO! you have a cluster! Trust me...its the best and most efficient way. On 09/11/2007, Vincent Diepeveen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Nov 9, 2007, at 1:27 AM, Chris Dagdigian wrote: > > > > > It is dangerous to project *your* particular use cases and > > workflows upon the community at large. > > > > Most of the clusters I end up building or working on (academic, > > government and corporate sites) are intended to support periodic > > spikes in computing demands. For university sites this could be the > > end of each semester as student projects become due and for > > research labs it may be for a 10 day period proceeding the > > submission of a major paper or grant applications. For EDA > > companies entire clusters may lay idle until some massive > > validation process needs to kick off. > > > > Clusters built to meet peak demand rarely hit 90% utilization > > (averaged over time) and often have lots of idle capacity sitting > > around waiting for a peak period to arrive. That is why we pay > > particular attention to things like Project Hedeby from Sun and the > > EGO stuff from Platform Computing along with the various homegrown > > based systems that people have built to power-on and power-off > > nodes (via IPMI) based on the length of the pending job list > > > A few remarks: > > a) the 70% usage comes from "supercomputer report europe". > b) "the community" that posts here has like NEAR TO ZERO $2500 > clusters at their work, > so if you happen to know 1+ then that already gives statistical > significant bragging rights. > > Ever seen a company say: "heh here you got $2500 build me the fastest > cluster you can get for that money"? > > Actually i'm typing at an ex-company machine, a macbookpro 17'', > which i got from my previous employer and it is still 2600 euro in > the shop here, which soon is a dollar or 5000. > In general when crunching becomes important to a company, definitely > a billion euro company, then they're gonna invest quite some more > than $2500 into crunching power. > > c) homegrown clusters usually are not built at the same manner like > the $2500 project says. Usually people buy a machine now, buy one a > year later and so on, and just cluster 'em, so instead of trying to > stick strict in some $2500 budget it's more like: "which cpu at what > cheapo mainboard gives most dang for my bucks". that'll be a quadcore. > d) for $2500 private clusters (private as in: at home) energy costs > play a big role. > e) another result of increased energy costs is of course sound concerns. > > Regarding C: A far more interesting theoretic question is of course > whether you should see most homegrown clusters as a cluster or as > some jbon (just a bunch of cheapo nodes), as i can't really recall > most 'private house clusters' to have even MPI installed. When is it > a cluster? > > heh you sure you still want your 2 cents in dollar currency rather > than euro's? > > > > In systems built for peak power and not constant throughput power > > control is a big deal and the eventual goal I'd love to see is more > > grid schedulers and resource brokers becoming hardware aware to the > > point of being able to power on and off nodes based on a given > > policy. It's coming and I've seen some neat homegrown solutions > > already. > > > > My $.02 as always > > > > -Chris > > > > > > > > On Nov 8, 2007, at 7:02 PM, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: > >> Building a $2500 cluster in order to NOT run software at it then > >> nonstop beats the idea of building a cluster. <snip> That assumes > >> you actually RUN software and that you have a lack of processing > >> power nonstop. So the machines are running all the time. > >> Additionally it's a private cluster, not some government type thing. > >> > >> I tend ro remember the government model assumed in the end 70% > >> usage effectively of processing power. That's not real true for > >> private users of clusters. You really get far above 90% usage. > >> > >> So you can argue the idle states do matter in the end for energy > >> costs, but you definitely can't assume it's idle majority of the > >> time. Building a $2500 cluster in order to then not let it run day > >> and night definitely is a thrown away $2500. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org > > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > > > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
