[ML-General] Cluster Computing

Thu Jan 22 22:11:56 CST 2015

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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