Jeremy,
I think you'll discover that the Beowulf list tends to comprise a number
of folks who are engaged in high performance, or high throughput,
computing already, or are coming into the fray, now interested in
learning what is composed of the art of the possible.
We've a nice assortment of knowledgable folk here, who offer their
expertise freely, and whose knowledge is often complementary and
extensible, in that one person's experiences and knowledge are often
building blocks for another's explanation.
We tend to run Linux, as a core OS of choice, for a variety of reasons.
These include familiarity, experience and comfort levels, and in a
number of cases, a systematic determination that it's the best choice
for what we're doing.
In this post, while apparently asking for opinions about the best OS for
grid or cluster computing, you point out "yet another academic OS
project" (which is not to dismiss it, but simply to categorize it).
EROS, from an academic perspective, looks interesting, but currently
impractical.
You see, like you, I've a finite temporal resource, and am limited in my
current job to a 168 hour work week (and by my wife and family to an
even shorter one). I have invested a lot of time in *nix over the years,
and have decided to my satisfaction that Linux is the best fit for my
scientific efforts. Further (or better|worse, depending on outlook), I
prefer CentOS these days for stability. You see, I've isolated clusters
that have been running without updates for half a decade, because
they're up and stable. I tend to create cluster environments that meet
a particular need for performance or throughput, and which can then be
administered as efficiently as possible... preferably meaning that
neither I, nor my other administrators, have to spend much time with
'em. My real job isn't to play with clusters, OS's or administration,
it's to obtain funding and do research using computational models.
Please don't take this as a slight. Instead, I'm trying to give you a
flavor of *some* of the folks here, and a basis for several of the
replies. We're interested, and there are almost certainly folks on this
list who've investigated all aspects of what you are asking about. I
trust these to answer your queries much better than I can. And don't
stop asking. But do realize that we tend to spend a lot of our time
trying to get the work out the door rather than searching for the next
great tool that could consume all our time learning whether it's practical.
Finally, getting back to the query that started all of this, I suspect
Linux, and NOT Solaris, would prove easier, by some margin. I recommend
you spend a little time investigating NPACI Rocks (yes, I do use them
for some clusters) as they have implementations using either Linux or
Solaris, and someone's developing a Rocks Roll for grid use, or so I'm
told. That could give you a fairly simple implementation path if that's
what you're looking for. At first glance, EROS does not look like it's
ready for prime time, so I'd not be looking that way. Of course, SOMEONE
needs to try it in the cluster world, someday, but I don't have the time
to be that person.
Good luck in your studies, and welcome to the group!
gerry
Jeremy Baker wrote:
EROS (Extremely Reliable Operating System)
http://www.eros-os.org/eros.html
--
Jeremy Baker
PO 297
Johnson, VT
05656
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--
Gerry Creager -- gerry.crea...@tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983
Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843
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