[ML-General] Cluster Computing

Tue Feb 3 14:36:07 CST 2015

I ran across this one today and decided to kick the dead horse.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/build-your-own-supercomputer-out-of-raspberry-pi-boards/

Erik

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 10:13 AM, david <ainut at knology.net> wrote:

>  Check out "uEnv."
>
>
>
> On 01/23/2015 10:11 AM, Stephan Henning wrote:
>
> Yup, there are some efforts to integrate a usb-ethernet adapter into it at
> a daughtercard level, but I don't foresee that working out well.
>
>  Well, if we used the Edison the density would have to skyrocket for it
> to be useful. You would be looking at something like 200+ Edison boards
> within a single chassis, so that makes the wifi-only aspect of it even less
> favorable.
>
>  I am not sure if they can PXE boot, I've never looked at it. A quick
> google doesn't show anything, so I'm betting the answer is probably no. I
> agree that is probably the best method for this, easily done with standard
> hardware, not so easy with something like the Edison. The other downside to
> the Edison is that so far the only methods I have seen to boot it involve
> booting it directly from the onboard flash. I haven't seen anyone figure
> out a way to have it boot from SD yet, and the thought of having to connect
> to hundreds of individual boards to setup the environments is not very
> appealing.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Michael Carroll <
> carroll.michael at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Stephan,
>>
>>  I didn't realize that the Edison was wifi-only.  I'm interested to hear
>> how 27 wifi devices in a metal box will work?
>>
>>  Also, do you know if the edison can pxeboot?  I think that's the best
>> approach for booting a whole bunch of homogeneous computers, it would
>> certainly be more maintenance overhead without that capability.
>>
>>  ~mc
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:04 PM, Stephan Henning <shenning at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> @Erik
>>> Well, the raspi and beaglebone have less ram than the Edison. I'll have
>>> to take a look at the Rock, the Pro version offers 2gb, but since the
>>> Edison is an x86 platform it is advantageous in many ways.
>>>
>>>  @Tim
>>>  Ya, that looks very similar. I'll give it a read through in the
>>> morning. I'll make sure to keep you updated.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:11 PM, Erik Arendall <earendall at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not sure of your ram requirements, but there are options in the RasPI,
>>>> beaglebone black, and check out Radxa Rock.
>>>>
>>>> http://radxa.com/Rock
>>>>
>>>> Erik
>>>>   On Jan 22, 2015 10:07 PM, "Tim H" <crashcartpro at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>   This sounds like a fun project!
>>>>> Reminds me of this guy:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/349862/seamicro_cloud_server_sports_512_atom_processors/
>>>>>  (cluster of low power processors in a single box)
>>>>>
>>>>>  I'd also been kicking a similar idea around for the last year, but no
>>>>> real ability to do it, so I'd love to see your progress!
>>>>>  -Tim
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:10 PM, Stephan Henning <shenning at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In some ways, yes. The biggest limitation with the Edison for me is
>>>>>> the ram. While there is a lot that we could run on it, it's restricts them
>>>>>> enough that I don't think it would be as useful, which changes alters the
>>>>>> true 'cost' of the setup.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Granted, you could probably fit a few hundred of them in a 4U
>>>>>> chassis. It would be an interesting experiment in integration though since
>>>>>> they have no ethernet interface, only wireless.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:02 PM, Erik Arendall <earendall at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've often kicked the idea around doing this with Arduinos and
>>>>>>> FPGAs. I guess you could also do it with Intel Edison modules. Cost wise
>>>>>>> the Edison modules would better than a PC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Erik
>>>>>>>   On Jan 22, 2015 6:44 PM, "Stephan Henning" <shenning at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  @mc
>>>>>>>> Both. If I start to scale this to a large number of nodes I can
>>>>>>>> foresee many headaches if I can't easily push modifications and updates.
>>>>>>>> From the job distribution side, it would be great to maintain compatibility
>>>>>>>> with condor, I'm just unsure how well it will operate if it has to hand
>>>>>>>> jobs off to the head node that then get distributed out further.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  @ Brian
>>>>>>>> Our current cluster is made up of discrete machines only about 20
>>>>>>>> nodes. Many of the nodes are actual user workstations that are brought in
>>>>>>>> when inactive. There is no uniform provisioning method. Every box has a
>>>>>>>> slightly different hardware configuration. Thankfully we do a pretty good
>>>>>>>> job keeping all required software aligned to the sam version.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  The VM idea is interesting. I hadn't considered that. I will need
>>>>>>>> to think on that and how I might be able to implement it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  @david
>>>>>>>> Yup, I'm fully aware this level of distributed computing is only
>>>>>>>> good for specific cases. I understand your position, thanks.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -stephan
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  ---———---•---———---•---———---
>>>>>>>> Sent from a mobile device, please excuse the spelling and brevity.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Jan 22, 2015, at 5:54 PM, Brian Oborn <linuxpunk at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>   I would be tempted to just copy what the in-house cluster uses
>>>>>>>> for provisioning. That will save you a lot of time and make it easier to
>>>>>>>> integrate with the larger cluster if you choose to do so. Although it can
>>>>>>>> be tempting to get hardware in your hands, I've done a lot of work with
>>>>>>>> building all of the fiddly Linux bits (DHCP+TFTP+root on NFS+NFS home) in
>>>>>>>> several VMs before moving to real hardware. You can set up a private
>>>>>>>> VM-only network between your head node and the slave nodes and work from
>>>>>>>> there.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:31 PM, Michael Carroll <
>>>>>>>> carroll.michael at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  So is your concern with provisioning and setup or with actual
>>>>>>>>> job distribution?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ~mc mobile
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Jan 22, 2015, at 17:15, Stephan Henning <shenning at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>   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.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  This all started when the Intel Edison got released. Some of us
>>>>>>>>> were talking about it one day and realized that it *might* have *just
>>>>>>>>> enough* 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'.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  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.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  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.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  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.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  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.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Our current cluster is almost always fully utilized. Currently
>>>>>>>>> we've got about a 2 month backlog of jobs on it.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Brian Oborn <linuxpunk at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Michael Carroll <
>>>>>>>>>> carroll.michael at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>  That being said, if you are doing something that requires
>>>>>>>>>>> InfiniBand, then hardware is your only choice :)
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>  ~mc
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:43 PM, Joshua Pritt <
>>>>>>>>>>> ramgarden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> 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...
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:31 PM, Brian Oborn <
>>>>>>>>>>>> linuxpunk at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>  Brian Oborn (aka bobbytables)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:25 PM, Stephan Henning <
>>>>>>>>>>>>> shenning at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  -stephan
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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