[ML-General] Cluster Computing

Thu Jan 22 23:04:27 CST 2015

@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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