On 09/16/2012 05:52 PM, Jeffrey Rossiter wrote: > Hello everyone! > > I am getting started on a cluster building project at my university. We > just replaced all of our lab machines so I am going to be using the old > machines to rebuild our cluster. The intention is for the system to be > used for scientific computation. I am trying to decide on a linux > distribution to use. Does it matter all that much? Any advice would be > greatly appreciated. Book suggestions would help too. I am waiting to > receive Building Clustered Linux Systems > <http://www.amazon.com/Building-Clustered-Linux-Systems-Robert/dp/0131448536/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347832213&sr=1-20&keywords=building+linux+clusters> > by Robert W. Lucke > <http://www.amazon.com/Robert-W.-Lucke/e/B001IQXRT6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_20?qid=1347832213&sr=1-20> > but my advisor for the project is concerned that it may be out of date > for what we are doing. Please share your ideas. Thanks! > > -Jeffrey Rossiter > <http://www.amazon.com/Robert-W.-Lucke/e/B001IQXRT6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_20?qid=1347832213&sr=1-20> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
If yours is a computer science project to learn about clusters, the list archives are worth searching: http://www.beowulf.org/ ** On the other hand, if the goals are just to deploy the cluster quickly, and basically use it for scientific computation, you can simply use Rocks [although some people may frown at it], and be up and running in a very short time: http://www.rocksclusters.org/wordpress/ They have decent documentation on the hardware requirements and how to setup the cluster: http://www.rocksclusters.org/roll-documentation/base/5.5/ It will use/require a specific Linux distribution, tied to the Rocks version. [The current Rocks 6.0 uses CentOS 6.2, replaceable by RHEL 6.2 or Scientific Linux 6.2, IIRR.] Most system administration tasks are handled [and sometimes must be handled exclusively] by their "rocks" command, which some people like, some don't. ** Literature: Douglas Eadline already pointed out cluster monkey: http://www.clustermonkey.net/ and there is also Robert G. Brown's [2004 ?] book: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Beowulf/beowulf_book.php ** Other things to think about, since you're cannibalizing old computers: 1. How homogeneous is the hardware: All x86, x86_64, how much memory, disk capacity, what type of network adapter [100T Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, well Infinband is unlikely if the machines are old]? The more homogeneous the machines are, the easier to cluster them. 2. Network switch [which depends on the network adapters in your machines] Do you have a [Ethernet/GigE, other] switch to connect the machines? Even a SOHO-type switch may work, although with poor performance. 3. Cluster deployment/maintenance [if you don't want to use Rocks] http://warewulf.lbl.gov/trac http://www.perceus.org/ http://xcat.sourceforge.net/ or DIY 4. Job scheduler to use: Torque: http://www.adaptivecomputing.com/products/open-source/torque/ SGE: http://gridscheduler.sourceforge.net/ Slurm: https://computing.llnl.gov/linux/slurm/ There are others, mostly commercial. 5. MPI [if you're doing parallel processing - most likely] OpenMPI [Ethernet, GigE, Infinband, Myrinet, etc] http://www.open-mpi.org/ MPICH2 [Ethernet/GigE, ...] http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/projects/mpich2/ MVAPICH2 [for Infinband] http://mvapich.cse.ohio-state.edu/overview/mvapich2/ ** I hope this helps, Gus Correa _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
