<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Surely you realize that not very many problems are appropriate for
cluster computing. For the CPU bandwidth you mentioned, an even
smaller set of problems are practical. Clusters are outstanding at
non-linear compute problems but suck big ones at problems where each
answer depends upon the previous one. <br>
<br>
Also, if it is for work and not your personal or charity
involvement, count me out unless your company is willing to pay
consultant fees.<br>
<br>
David Merchant<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/22/2015 05:15 PM, Stephan Henning
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CACu1UD63K8_Kadr8_05vG01HMgpzeNpbJSt2MPfSS2ezaBWhxA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">This is a side project for the office. Sadly, most
of this type of work can't be farmed out to external clusters,
otherwise we would use it for that. We do currently utilize AWS
for some of this type work, but only for internal R&D.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This all started when the Intel Edison got released. Some
of us were talking about it one day and realized that it <i>might</i>
have <i>just enough</i> processing power and ram to handle
some of our smaller problems. We've talked about it some more
and the discussion has evolved to the point where I've been
handed some hours and a small amount of funding to try and
implement a 'cluster-in-a-box'. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The main idea being to rack a whole bunch of mini-itx
boards on edge into a 4U chassis (yes, they will fit).
Assuming a 2" board-board clearance across the width of the
chassis and 1" spacing back-to-front down the depth of a box,
I think I could fit 27 boards into a 36" deep chassis, with
enough room for the power supplies and interconnects. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Utilizing embedded motherboards with Atom C2750 8-core
CPU's and 16gb of ram per board, that should give me a pretty
substantial cluster to play with. Obviously I am starting
small, probably with two or three boards running Q2900 4-core
cpus until I can get the software side worked out.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The software-infrastructure side is the part I'm having a
hard time with. While there are options out there for how to
do this, they are all relatively involved and there isn't an
obvious 'best' choice to me right now. Currently our in-house
HPC cluster utilizes HTCondor for it's backbone, so I would
like to maintain some sort of connection to it. Otherwise, I'm
seeing options in the Beowulf and Rocks areas that could be
useful, I'm just not sure where to start in all honesty. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>At the end of the day this needs to be relatively easy for
us to manage (time spent working on the cluster is time spent
not billing the customer) while being easy enough to add notes
to, assuming this is a success and I get the OK to expand it
to a full 42U racks worth. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Our current cluster is almost always fully utilized.
Currently we've got about a 2 month backlog of jobs on it. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Brian
Oborn <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:linuxpunk@gmail.com" target="_blank">linuxpunk@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">If you can keep your utilization high, then
your own hardware can be much more cost effective.
However, if you end up paying depreciation and maintenance
on a cluster that's doing nothing most of the time you'd
be better off in the cloud.</div>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:50
PM, Michael Carroll <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:carroll.michael@gmail.com"
target="_blank">carroll.michael@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Depending on what you are going to
do, it seems like it would make more sense to
use AWS or Digital Ocean these days, rather than
standing up your own hardware. Maintaining your
own hardware sucks.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>That being said, if you are doing something
that requires InfiniBand, then hardware is
your only choice :)</div>
<span><font color="#888888">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>~mc</div>
</font></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 22,
2015 at 4:43 PM, Joshua Pritt <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ramgarden@gmail.com"
target="_blank">ramgarden@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">My friends and I
installed a Beowulf cluster on a
closet full of Pentium 75 Mhz machines
we were donated just for fun many
years ago back when Beowulf was just
getting popular. We never figured out
anything to do with it though...</div>
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu,
Jan 22, 2015 at 5:31 PM, Brian
Oborn <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:linuxpunk@gmail.com"
target="_blank">linuxpunk@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">In my previous
job I set up several
production Beowulf clusters,
mainly for particle physics
simulations and this has
been an area of intense
interest for me. I would be
excited to help you out and
I think I could provide some
good assistance.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Brian Oborn (aka
bobbytables)<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><span>On
Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at
4:25 PM, Stephan
Henning <span
dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:shenning@gmail.com" target="_blank">shenning@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
</span>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex"><span>
<div dir="ltr">Does
anyone on the
mailing list
have any
experience with
setting up a
cluster
computation
system? If so
and you are
willing to humor
my questions,
I'd greatly
appreciate a few
minutes of your
time. <span><font
color="#888888">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-stephan</div>
</font></span></div>
<br>
</span><span>_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing
list<br>
<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org" target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general"
target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
</span></blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org"
target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general"
target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org"
target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general"
target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org"
target="_blank">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general"
target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
General mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general"
target="_blank">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
General mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
This headspace for rent</pre>
</body>
</html>