[General] Any linux gurus?

Sun Dec 15 18:47:18 CST 2013

Jeff Cotten says if this thread gets to 50 messages, he'll throw a party.
So. This is my contribution?
On Dec 15, 2013 5:37 PM, "James Fluhler" <j.fluhler at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the link I will check it out!
>
> James F.
>
> On Dec 15, 2013, at 4:04 PM, Stephan Henning <shenning at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> -WD
>
> I'll check the arrays and see what they are currently formatted as, it's
> not a big deal to reformat one of these arrays, so that something that can
> be changed quick and easy.
>
> Eh, I'm not involved in the development, but I'll bring it up and if it is
> something that hasn't been considered I'll put some pressure on them to
> look into it.
>
>
> -James
> http://www.ierustech.com/product/v-lox/
>
> It's internally built, just got rolled out to market.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 2:04 PM, James Fluhler <j.fluhler at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I have not heard of VLOX before and a quick google search turned up
>> nothing? Is it commercially available or internally built? I've typically
>> used NEC, GEMS, EMDS, and Genesys, for eMag simulation work.
>>
>> Just curious but where do you work haha
>>
>> James F.
>>
>> On Dec 13, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Stephan Henning <shenning at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Method of Moment, Computational ElectroMagnertics.
>>
>> Program is called Vlox
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 10:47 AM, David <ainut at knology.net> wrote:
>>
>>>  MoM CEM vlox -- could you expand those acronyms, please?  Is this a
>>> logistics planning tool?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Stephan Henning wrote:
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>  Hmm, sounds interesting. The problem is distributed a little
>>> currently, you can think of it kind of what is being done as a form of
>>> monte carlo, so the same run will get repeated many times with light
>>> parameter adjustments. Each of these can be distributed out to the compute
>>> nodes very easily, currently this is being done with condor.
>>>
>>>
>>>  -James
>>>
>>>  It's a MoM CEM tool called vlox.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 5:43 AM, James Fluhler <j.fluhler at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>>  I'm just curious what simulation program are you running? I've used a
>>>> number in the past that also utilize the GPU's for processing.
>>>>
>>>> James F.
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 12, 2013, at 11:28 PM, David <ainut at knology.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>   IIRC, the good thing about this cluster is the automagic load
>>>> leveling.  Your existing binary may not run at max optimization but if the
>>>> task can be spread among processors, Beowulf does a nice job of it.  If
>>>> each computer has it's own GPU(s), then all the better.
>>>>
>>>> You can test it right there without changing anything on the system's
>>>> disks.  Just create and run all the cluster members off a CD.
>>>>
>>>> Then to test, pick the fastest one of them (maybe even your existing
>>>> Xeon box), run your benchmark, record execution time, then boot all the
>>>> other machines in the cluster and run it again.  There are only about two
>>>> dozen steps to set it up.  One professor even put most of those, along with
>>>> automatic cluster setup(!) as a downloadable you can boot off of.  That
>>>> leaves half a dozen steps to tweak the cluster together, then you're good
>>>> to go.  I have one of those CD's around here somewhere and I can get
>>>> details if you're interested.  Something to play with.  I did it with only
>>>> 4 pc's around the house with some code and even though the code was never
>>>> designed for a cluster (just multiprocessing), I got about 40% decrease in
>>>> execution time.  The code was almost completely linear execution so I'm
>>>> surprised it got any improvement but it did.
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Stephan Henning wrote:
>>>>
>>>> -WD
>>>>
>>>>  I believe it's either ext3 or ext4, I'd have to ssh in and check when
>>>> I get back on Monday.
>>>>
>>>>  -David
>>>>
>>>>  I'll check into the Beowulf and see what that would entail. I'll try
>>>> and talk with the developer and see what their thoughts are on the
>>>> feasibility of running it on a cluster. They may have already gone down
>>>> this path and rejected it, but I'll check anyway.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 6:16 PM, David <ainut at knology.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Sounds like a perfect candidate for a Beowulf cluster to me.  There
>>>>> are possibly some gotcha's but you'll have the same problems with just a
>>>>> single computer.
>>>>>
>>>>> Velly intewesting.
>>>>>
>>>>> Stephan Henning wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  -WD
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The GPUs are sent data in chunks that they then process and return.
>>>>>> The time it takes a GPU to process a chunk can vary, so I assume the bottle
>>>>>> necks we were seeing was when several of the GPU cores would finish at
>>>>>> about the same time and request a new chunk and the chunk they needed
>>>>>> wasn't already in RAM, so the drive array would take a heavy hit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Beyond that, I can't really give you a numerical value as to the
>>>>>> amount of data they are dumping into the pcie bus.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ya, not sure an FPGA exists large enough for this, it would be
>>>>>> interesting though.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While the process isn't entirely sequential, data previously
>>>>>> processed is reused in the processing of other data, so that has kept us
>>>>>> away from trying a cluster approach.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Depending on the problem, anywhere from minutes per iteration, to
>>>>>> weeks per iteration. The weeks long problems are sitting at about 3TB I
>>>>>> believe. We've only run benchmark problems on the SSDs up till now, so we
>>>>>> haven't had the experience of seeing how they react once they start really
>>>>>> getting full.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Sadly, 2TB of RAM would not be enough. I looked into this Dell box (
>>>>>> http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=4231377#!tab=features<
>>>>>> http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=4231377#%21tab=features>)
>>>>>> that would take 4TB, but the costs were insane and it can't support enough
>>>>>> GPUs to actually do anything with the RAM...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  <<<snip>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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