Just so I'm clear: Does each node really need 500GB of disk? Does it need local disk at all? What are you using the disk for? If you look hard at the disk side of the things, you may find ways to save a lot of money, power, and performance.
I'm not saying you don't need storage, I'm just wondering why the need for so much local storage. --- Puryear IT, LLC - Baton Rouge, LA - http://www.puryear-it.com/ Active Directory Integration : Web & Enterprise Single Sign-On Identity and Access Management : Linux/UNIX technologies Download our free ebook "Best Practices for Linux and UNIX Servers" http://www.puryear-it.com/pubs/linux-unix-best-practices/ -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ski Kacoroski Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 2:14 PM To: Seattle Area System Administrators Guild; [email protected] Subject: [lopsa-tech] Spec'ing out a small compute cluster for R&D Hi, I have been asked to recommend a small compute cluster for a small software firm (they support the R statistics language) and am hoping that some of the experts on these lists can help me with ideas and let me know of pitfalls to avoid. The basic requirements are: 1. 5 nodes. Would like to be have option to expand number of nodes if not too costly 2. each node needs 500GB local disk space, 4 cores, 2.5GHz or better, 8GB ram. 3. need to have cluster be dual boot between windows HPC and linux RHEL5. 4. a controlling node that can be switched between linux and windows to control the cluster. Perhaps run a hypervisor on this and have both controllers running at the same time? 5. Possibly some shared space. They do not know yet if shared space is useful for a compute cluster. 6. A switch to hook it all together. I appreciate your ideas on what to get, where to get it, what pitfalls I need to look out for. cheers, ski -- "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it connected to the entire universe" John Muir Chris "Ski" Kacoroski, [email protected], 206-501-9803 or ski98033 on most IM services _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/ _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
