[ML-General] Cluster Computing

Tue Feb 3 15:45:17 CST 2015

I've reviewed that build before, it was nicely done.

With the extra RAM in the V2 announced today, the raspi is now a better
candidate. While the idea of using the raspi or the Edison is nice, I think
there may be too many obstacles along that path to getting a proof of
concept prototype up and running quickly.

I'm currently benchmarking a few different mini-ITX motherboard/processor
combinations. Assuming I don't run into a thermal saturation situation, I'm
hopeful this will be the best bang for the buck.

-stephan

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Erik Arendall <earendall at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>   _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>   _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> General mailing list
>>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> General mailing list
>>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> General mailing list
>>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> General mailing listGeneral at lists.makerslocal.orghttp://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>
>>
>> --
>> This headspace for rent
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> General mailing list
>> General at lists.makerslocal.org
>> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> General mailing list
> General at lists.makerslocal.org
> http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.makerslocal.org/pipermail/general/attachments/20150203/9f6718c1/attachment.html>