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Wanted: Turn-Key 10-Node Beowulf Cluster 239

Posted by timothy from the only-alive-not-dead dept.
forgotten password writes: "I'd just started working on my morning M&Ms, when I was asked where my group can buy a good turn-key ~2CPUx10-node Beowulf cluster in two hours. I suspect the time frame is longer than that, although the window-of-opportunity for the money is apparently on the order of days, and a quote before the procurement meeting would help. Any ideas? Who's good? What it should cost? Thanks!" If you're quick, maybe you can become the world's newest manufacturer of custom beowulf clusters.
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Wanted: Turn-Key 10-Node Beowulf Cluster More

Wanted: Turn-Key 10-Node Beowulf Cluster

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  • Atipa (Score:4, Informative)

    by p14-lda ( 517504 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:30PM (#2326909) Homepage
    Clemson University purchased a setup w/ 512 nodes from Atipa, they delivered it onsite. Can't beat that. Call 888-222-7822, and ask for Bret, tell him the PARL sent you
    • I went to a party at Comdex Chicago that was for Atipa employees, and listend to a talk from the CEO and they are ass-kickers. They have built clusters for Motorola (I think) and NASA. they certainly wouldn't be a bad choice.

    • Re:Atipa (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dyelar ( 19687 )
      Be warned, Atipa was recently bought by MicroTech computers, and they are sometimes known for not being very good about support, or providing decent equipment. I know that Microtech fired a whole bunch of the Atipa employees though. Before this though, Atipa was looking very good.

      If you are interested, SGI can sell you turn key beowulf solutions also. You can also go to http://www.beowulf.org and they have a list of commercial companies that provide beowulf clustering solutions.
      • By far and away MicroTech is the sleaziest of all possible computer vendors. They only really have money, because for a while the state of Kansas dictacted that computers must be bought in state. Their PC's break after about 1.5 years and they try to wiggle out of complete support contracts, which would have 1.5 years left on them by saying stupid shit like memory is too expensive so we're not going to replace it (even though they are contractually obligated to do so). And they're laptop support is utter crap. You'll call about a failed laptop. Trace the problem down to bad memory (himem.sys won't even start because it can't access sections of memory), request to have it replaced, but they'll send it back saying Norton anti-virus fixed the problem. But the problem pops up in the returned box. Oh yea, and you can't find drivers for anything. Sorry to be so mean, but I've really had more than I can take of Microtech. Stay away from them like the plague.
    • I tried calling, I think his phone number is slashdotted..

    • Been There Done That (Score:2, Insightful)

      by elinenbe ( 25195 )
      This summer I was employed at a finite element analysis company in Philadelphia, and I designed, budgeted, and built a 10 processor AMD System (Octavian) based on gigabit ethernet, 1.2 Gig MP AMD chips on Tyan mobo's with half a gig of RAM per node, and it did not cost more then $13000 plus some setup time. (This was with a gigabit switch, etc AND the current cost with dropping prices would be less then $10000) The computer was designed to run LS-DYNA (a Livermore software finite analysis program) and it has not let them down.

      Here are some benchmarks:

      Octavian Benchmark runs
      as of 8/17/01

      Problem description:
      Acetabular cup with a spherical metal ball compressing the liner into the
      shell.
      The effect of holes used for screw fixation to the bone is included
      Total Mesh Statistics
      45814 Nodes
      37696 8-noded solid elements
      2 contact pairs
      Dynamic Relaxation Solution:

      Execution Statistics
      2 Processors : 62 Minutes
      6 Processors: 34 minutes
      10 Processors: 24 minutes

      Analysis of the execution throughput indicicates a linearly increasing speed
      (1/wall clock time)

      And here is a review of the results:

      the cluster is performing BEAUTIFULLY, and we have been crunching problems on it pretty much nonstop since it was brought online. It has really saved our butts, as we could never have met some key project deadlines without the speed. I've included some bechmarking stats below FYI for a contact problem that took only 24 minutes to run on octavian using 10 cpus. The comparable time on our $50K dual CPU octane workstation is 3 hours and 26 minutes, which translates into a speed up of 8.6 times for about 1/5 the cost.

      So, What I am trying to say is build the thing yourself. You will know much more about the system, and you will be able to install any software you want to without having to deal with "customer service". Also, it will save you a bundle as a turnkey solution is nearly 3 times the price. (Even if this cluster was built with Myrinet it would still be far less then any of the pre-built solutions) Lastly, design the cluster for what you need. If your problems involves lots of RAM, then spen money there. If CPU is the bottleneck spent money there. If communication is the bottleneck....

      Best of Luck,
      Eric
  • So it would appear that out of nowhere a multithreaded application appeared that needed this kind of horsepower??
    • Probably not. In science there's sometimes money that needs to be spent by a certain deadline. More often than not the principal investigator will then suddenly remember that proposal by some group member to spend big bucks on some obscure (for him/her anyway) technical thing and get on the bandwagon. At that point things need to move fast...

      Been there, done that. Planning has not much to do with it, but getting a busy and distracted person's ear does.

      Remember: Computing per se is not the primary focus of most compute power consumers.
      • no, what it ACTUALLY is is a federal group of some sort...

        the fiscal year ends in 10 days and any money not spent goes back to the treasury and scrutinized...

        one of the contracts that i'm on right now is freezing as of 09/30 unless our client gets at least some of their funding soon...

        the House seems to be busy doing other things right now instead of approving the budget... understandable though...

  • Western Scientific ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bob(TM) ( 104510 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:31PM (#2326923)
    ... will sell you one.

    Price depends on bells and whistles, but the 8 node, dual processor P-III system we got with SCI cards ran around $35K.

    http://www.wsm.com
  • I wonder what the limits and power of a 4-way quad Xeon Beowulf cluster would be like.

    With RAM so cheap nowadays, one could have at least a capable cluster without monster chips. Coupled with Xeons, I fail to imagine how great the price:performance ratio is compared to Big Iron like IBM's Power3 and Power4 systems...

    *drool*
    • they suck, basically. a 4-way Xeon is sitting
      on a miserable 800 MB/s (450 sustained) bus,
      so unless your code is totally cache-friendly,
      the CPUs will starve. and if your code is so
      cache-friendly, you should probably be looking
      at different hardware in the first place.

    • Re:x4? xMore? (Score:2, Informative)

      by choprboy ( 155926 )
      As someone who actually owns a quad Xeon (Intel Sitka 4x400MHz 1M cache) and is building 2 more for a cluster... the answer, as always, is "depends". It all depends on what the intended use is. For a embarrassingly simple parallel processing job (aka running 20 seti@home jobs) the price/performance ratio can be quite poor. Prices are definately down, but the motherboards and RAM are still fairly expensive (typically you need EDO ECC DIMMs with high end server boards, not the cheap SDRAM). You can pick up several 1GHz barebones Athlons for the same price and run the data serially thru each at a faster pace.

      On the other hand, if you have a true multi-threaded, highly integrated task that requires high inter-process communication, separate boxes are a poor choice. Something like a large relational database or multi-dimensional vibration calculation wherein each calculation requires knowledge of it's neighbors motions, is far superior on a multi-CPU box. Unless you implement an expensive Dolphin/Myrinet network, the process communication alone, be it over ether, SCSI, or FC, kills a multi-box solution. Not to mention the fact quad Xeon boxes typically take 4-8GB of RAM so everything is always local.
  • You can't buy (or make) a x node cluster and expect to run Quake x times faster : parallel processing machines require parallel programming. This is usually means that you want a cluster to solve a particular problem, that the problem is specified, the parallel application is properly designed, architectured and implemented.

    I have the feeling that friend forgotten_password's group have no clue about Beowulf clusters.

  • I never saw a place that sold ready made beowulfs ... i think you need to "assemble them" yourself. And if u can manage that in two hours you should come work for us ! Check out http://www.beowulf.org/
    • These two places make and sell Clusters

      http://www.par-tec.com/

      http://www.aspsys.com/

      I have no knowledge about how good these are.

      BTW, you DO know that you need a special type of paralell programming to really make use of all the added processors rite ? its not like your regular apps will run faster.

      Good luck
      T

    • OUCH (Score:2, Informative)

      by Tensor ( 102132 )
      1. Microway's Dual 1GHz Pentium III Beowulf Cluster
      Package Pricing (Including Server):
      8 Processors: $ 8,625
      16 Processors: $16,325
      32 Processors: $31,725
      64 Processors: $62,525

      dammm this is like a 1k per proc ! i am sure you can build it cheaper

  • If I remember my Beowulf correctly... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slashdolt ( 166321 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:35PM (#2326949)
    It should cost an arm, but not necessarily a leg.

  • Beowulf Site (www.beowulf-underground.org) (Score:3, Informative)

    by p14-lda ( 517504 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:37PM (#2326955) Homepage
    Check out www.beowulf-underground.org [beowulf-underground.org] That is the place for everything beowulf. It is run by the guys in the Parallel Architecture Research Lab at Clemson University.
  • on page 7, has an ad for Aspen Systems, advertising out-of-the-box beowulf clusters. I've never used them myself, but they have an impressive list of clients in the ad, including Los Alamos, MIT, NIST, NOAA, and Sandia.

    www.aspsys.com

  • From Linux Journal (Score:2, Informative)

    by kperrier ( 115199 )
    A quick search of the ads in my linux journal:

    I hope this helps!

    Kent

  • Vendors (Score:3, Informative)

    by PenguinX ( 18932 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:39PM (#2326968) Homepage
    Penguin Computing [penguincomputing.com] ships beowulf clusters

    IBM [ibm.com]does a lot of linux stuff, they even have beowulf traning classes - I imagine that they have some turnkey solution.

    Compaq [compaq.com] sells 'em. too.

    In other words, almost any company that sells Linux servers sells beowulf clusters o' servers as well. And if you want training, quite a few of them out there have classes for it too :)

  • I have never set one up, but maybe visiting the Beowulf [beowulf.org] might be a good starting point. Other links include the Beowulf Clusters [yahoo.com] page at Yahoo and the Oak Ridge Extreme Linux Page [ornl.gov].

    If you don't find any answers to your quest then you could always buy 10 dual-processor machines, configure one and then copy its HD image to the other 9 ( I have never tried this ).

  • We build beowulf clusters and have (if I do say so myself) the most advanced cluster management utilities in the industry.

    Check us out. [linuxnetworx.com]

    I'm not a salesman, but we've got some people that would be more than happy to talk to you. :)

  • I bet you either work for the government or do IT consulting for them. Is it for some kind of scientific work or to help kill of the terrorists?
    • interesting thought, im right behind you. Perhaps an encryption cracking machine? hmmm....

      • RTS+FPS Sim (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Da VinMan ( 7669 )
        Not encryption... modeling of the ground actions to be take in Afghanistan or other areas. Probably need to know just how hard it's going to be. Couple the micro-management concerns of a first person shooter with the strategic elements of a real-time strategy with the parallel concerns of mutiple agents in the field and you could probably simulate a proper battlefield in short order.

        Hmm...

        My $0.02 worth of a guess. :)

  • Don't forget Scyld. (Score:3, Informative)

    by pi_rules ( 123171 ) on Thursday September 20, 2001 @02:47PM (#2327027)
    Check out Scyld [scyld.com] [scyld.com]. If I'm not mistaken Donald Becker (one of the founders of Beowulf) is the head of the company ... or at least has something to do with it.
    • Scyld Vendors Scyld Beowulf Professional Product Scyld has partnered with industry leaders for them to provide Enterprise Level systems which consist of pre-integrated, supported hardware systems loaded with the Professional Scyld Beowulf:
  • As other have pointed out, getting the cluster and getting it running isn't the hard part. Parallelizing your application, choosing a parallel library/utility, and coding to it will take a lot of time. A beowulf cluster is basically just a big bag of Linux boxen until you code specifically to it.

    Of course, if the issue is just spending the funding fast, go right ahead. Don't expect results for a long time, though.

  • Just wondering... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by teaserX ( 252970 )
    Would 2 Quad boxes be better than 4 duals? I don't think they're *much* more expensive (per slot)and administering two boxes might be more practical than four. The performance gained by eliminating communications overhead may make for a desirable price/performance. I don't know; I was just thinkin'...
    • Two quad boxes would theoretically outperform 4 duals, because you have more bandwidth between the processors. Of course, if it's not a parallel task in the first place, extra processors won't give you anything.

      You're wrong about the price though. Two quad boxes would be _much_ more expensive than four duals, because you can no longer use your traditional PIII/Athlon processors. You have to up it to an Alpha or Xeon. Both those processors and their respective motherboards cost 1.5-3x the price of PIII's, for the equivalent number of processors.

      The point of Beowulf clusters is to be able to put bunches of computers that are not very powerful in and of themselves together to make something really powerful, so using quad processor boxes kinda defeats the purpose. The ideal price/performance balance is two processors per box, and this is easy to see by looking at the commercially available solutions.
    • Probably depends where most of your collisions take place, but I do know that when you have multiple Pentiums (not sure on Xeon based), that when one CPU is accessing the memory or I/O, the other has to sit and wait. That's one of the big benefits of a multiple Athlon system - both CPU's can access memory simultaneously.

      We bought one of the APPRO 1U dual TBirds, and this thing -screams-. It also howls, but that's the four big blower fans. :)

      APPRO is at http://www.appro.com, and Anandtech had a writeup on the server [anandtech.com].
  • Linux Labs [linuxlabs.com] will happily sell you clusters, either in standard or custom configurations.

    My rough estimate from reading their website is that a 10-node 1.33-GHz Athlon cluster from them would price out at something like $16-17k.
  • I've run into guys from an company called mission-critical linux www.missioncriticallinux.com [missioncriticallinux.com] at the local LUG meetings. I know that they do custom clusters. Perhaps they can help?
  • As stated previously look there...
  • I'm glad someone is asking about the cost. But I think I've got the hardware thing worked out.

    I've got a bunch of old Pentium I's and II's in a basement of a charity I do some volunteer work for. Can get a hold of a router. I've got all the nerd-boys a bit pumped to beowulf a cluster this winter when it's too cold to paintball.

    So my question is, what to run on the blasted thing once you get it up ? Is there anything open source out there worth looking into ? Or am I just going to have to buy an application. If so, which one, how much ?
    • wow, you sound like my brother... are you adopted?! Beowulfs in lieu of paintball, and in charge of pumping up the nerds...like looking into a nerd-mirror.
    • Most of the apps for Beowulf clusters tend to be scientifically oriented apps. It really comes down to there being only certain kinds of problems that can be broken down into parallel processes that can be executed concurently, then the answers "recombined" at the end to get the result.

      IIRC, Mosix allows for using the machine as one large machine, essentially allowing each process (or groups of processes) a single CPU, but funneling the result back to the main controller, so to the user, it looks like one large machine. This is different from a standard parallel processing Beowulf cluster, which behave like classical parallel processing machines.

      For that domain (parallel processing), aside from coding your own stuff (hard to due, even if you are a master coder, from what I understand - due to having to understand what classes of problems can be broken down into parallel tasks, and then actually applying that knowledge to real tasks), there is one application that would prove to be "fun" - Ray Tracing.

      Fortunately, POVRay has a paralleled version available, for Beowulf clusters. I don't have a link, but I know it exists (heck, you can probably get it at the POVRay site).

      One other disclaimer: Everything I have said should be interpreted as "coming out my ass", simply because I have no experience at building or using Beowulf clusters or any other parallel processing architectures. Most of what I know about them have come from /. discussions, various web sites of Beowulf cluster projects, books, and magazine articles (as well as one funky book I picked up at the library detailing programming in Fortran for a Connection Machine - eeepp!). The POVRay stuff is true, though...
      • As much fun as rendering seems over a large network, if you are really doing any major rendering and you don't have Cray-linked SGI's .. you are better off treating it as a NOW (network of workstations).
        The POVRay rendering dropped off at 8 procs or so, if i can remember correctly.

        We render a hand full of frames per box and do this on several boxes. This keeps the network overhead between machines low.

        Sometimes when people talk about beowulf, what they really mean or really want is just a bunch of managed computers running tasks. If the task can be broken down at submission time, like most renders, then take advantage of a NOW.
        • Good points.

          In a way, from what I understand, this is kinda what Mosix does for you, automatically, and and thus different from a true Beowulfed parallel processing app.

          I guess it also depends on if you want to learn parallel processing techniques, or if you are trying to get a job done.

          The drop off I would imagine is due to slow interconnects among the nodes - I am sure there would be better gains the higher speed your interconnects were.

          Anybody know how the POVRay for Beowulf machines really works? Does it break the viewport into n sections, handing each section to a different node, or does it process multiple rays (ie, a node per ray), or what? Anybody got a link on this?
      • One other disclaimer: Everything I have said should be interpreted as "coming out my ass"...

        Heh - I think with Slashdot, this is usually an assumed competence. But we appreciate you candidness anyway.

      • No shit sherlock.

        The guy knows what a Beowulf does, he needs somebody to BUILD one for him.

        Goddamn karma whore.
    • If you just want to tinker, and ball-busting computing power is unnecessary, you really shouldnt be building a Beowulf cluster.
      Have a look at the info contained at MOSIX.org [mosix.org] they provide kernel patches && apps to build clusters also, but these clusters allow -depending on your configuration (how/who/what of each computer in the cluster) - processes to migrate from 'more idle nodes'.

      From what i understand, you could setup your 'head or workstation' machine to let procs dribble off onto other nodes.

      have a look - much more usefull to geek exploration than beowulf... even if beowulf gets 'all the /. mentions'

  • There's an ad in the latest Embedded Linux Journal for a company called Aspen Systems [aspsys.com] (1-800-992-9242) advertising Beowulf clusters. Thtat's about the sum total of all I know about them ;).

    - j


  • Better and cheaper idea, do it yourself. Instead of buying 10 dual proccessor systems at $2000+ each, goto Fryes and get 30 Emachines or whatever they are selling for $299, add a couple hundred dollars for 30 decent network cards, one monitor for the control node (barrow a couple more to do the installs) a few hours to install and configure RedHat 7.1, which comes with the clustering software and you'd be done by morning. You will probably get better performance at half to two thirds the cost. This is what clustering is all about, turning cheap off the shelf systems into a super computer.


    • > This is what clustering is all about, turning cheap off the shelf systems into a super computer.

      No, this is not what clustering is about. Beowulf, specifically, is about gaining raw performance without concern for stability or fault tolerance/redundancy.

      There are many other uses for and of clustering; not all of them are concerned with speed (your super computer quotient, if you will), less of them are concerned with saving money.

      Granted, the original post specifically mentioned Beowulf, but from that one should not assume that clustering == Beowulf.

      Oh, and why on earth do you need a monitor to do the install??

      • Oh, and why on earth do you need a monitor to do the install??

        I'll tell ya why you need a monitor to do the install...

        so that when the first machine is up and running you can download ROBOCODE [ibm.com] and do some javabot simulations on your new cluster and see how many battles you can simulate in 1 hr. =)

        JOY JOY HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY!!!

    • beowulf isn't just clustering, it's compute-intensive clustering. that means that run-of-the-mill 100bT cards will likley not be enough - think Myri2000, SCI, Quadrics, gigabit.
      whitebox machines also tend to be truely horribly configured - you probably don't want UMA video stealing dram bandwidth, for instance. and even for a smallish cluster, it's smart to get better power supplies and fans, simply because the noname stuff has short expected lifespans.
    • The $299 is more than likely the price AFTER a few hundred dollar rebate that requires a long term contract with an ISP (CompuServe, MSN, or AOL most likey) ...now what would this company that obviously has serious work to do on a Beowulf cluster want with 30 four-year subscriptions to MSN? :)
      • Not true. You can get eMachines at fry's for aroud 299 bucks (or the 3 I got for 375, with a 75 dollar rebate, NO ISP contract, plain old rebate) without any form of ISP contract. Add a 80 buck 17inch monitor and you have a nice system. I bought one for my girlfriend. And then a few more.
    • Forget the eMachines.

      I've just finished building a (really small) 4-node cluster for some research I'm doing.

      Each node is a Duron 750 w/256MB RAM and a 100Base net card, power supply and floppy drive. They're vertically stacked on some 2' threaded rod from McMaster Carr. [mcmaster.com]

      But get this: I built the whole thing for $170 per node . That's everything, shipped to my door.

      They load the kernel off the floppy and grab the NFS root from a fileserver I've got set up, so no need for hard drives. Granted, there's a bit more network and memory overhead (both /var and /tmp sit in memory), but I can buy more nodes from the money that I've saved on hard drives.
      • does anyone know of an affordable shared storage solution for this?
        I know that SCSI can operate on a shared bus for 2 nodes, but I'd really like to test out Oracle 9i Real Application Cluster (RAC) (formally Parallel Server) on a 4 node setup on Linux - but would need a shared storage device for log files, data files, control files.

        FC would be a little pricey.
        NetApp filers are outta my league.
        thanks.
  • How to make a Beowulf cluster in 2 hours for free.

    1) Find a single machine to use as cluster server.
    2) Install some linux (I prefers debian.)
    3) Set it up as a diskless client server.
    Debian have some diskless packages, but I prefers
    to use cluster-nfs form clusternfs.sourgeforge.net
    it makes it easier to maintain the system.

    you can find a howto for setting up a mosix cluster
    at the cluster-nfs site dropping the mosix stuff and installing
    mpi and pvm should do it.

    4) To use your groups computers as diskless nodes
    go to http://www.rom-o-magic.net make some boot floppies
    and use them to boot against your server.

    5) Have fun with your new Beowulf cluster.

    Whenever you need a Beowulf cluster just boot up
    via the floppys.
    In this setup it is only one the server you need to maintain.

    Knud
  • We bought a 168-node Pentium cluster from Atipa, and we're negotiating for a 1024-node (yes, that's right) Athlon cluster from Linux Networx.
  • RTFLJ :)
    From the Oct. 2001 Linux Journal
    http://www.microway.com - Alpha, Athlon & Pentium
    http://www.aspsys.com - Athlon and Pentium
    These ads mention clusters specifically.

  • ..listed here:


    [planetcluster.org]
    http://planetcluster.org/links.php?op=viewslink& si d=20


    Hope that helps

  • You could purchase 10 APPRO AMD MP servers. These machines are based off of the Tyan boards so have all the built-in high end features you could wish for, while still being relatively cheap and easily networkable given the builtin NICs. Plus SCSI and potential for RAID if you feel you need it. and all in 1U.

    http://www.appro.com/ [appro.com]

    or for the AMD systems specifically http://www.appro.com/1124.html [appro.com]

    Should give you enough information to put together a 10U Beowulf cluster...
    • We had bad luck with Appro servers in the past (non-Beowulf, though). They specified high-end processor cards and shipped very low-end cards. The Appro chassis became something of a joke around our office.
  • On Friday the government authorizes $20,000,000,000.00 for defense. The following Thursday a request goes out to procure Beowulf cluster in two hours. Let me guess this is to heat your dorm room right?

    Your tax dollars at work.

  • Scyld (Score:2)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 )

    Haven't dealt with them directly, but I believe they have Don Becker, one of the Beowulf pioneers.

    I think they have developed a system to help provide a single system image, along the lines of MOSIX, but not MOSIX, IIRC. This can help managing such a cluster which could otherwise be like managing 10 separate machines - a hassle.

  • Check out http://www.rlxtechnologies.com/ [rlxtechnologies.com]. We've got Scyld stuff running very well. Processors are not very beefy, but we can get 24 of 'em in three rack units (or 336 in a 42U rack), and have some very nice tools to manage the whole shebang. Very little power required, easy to wire.

    Just to say it out loud...I work there, so it's a blatant self-promotion, I guess. But it is a bad ass little product that packs a punch.

  • Just imagine...

    a Beow...

    oh wait. Never mind.
  • Honest to goodness curious question that I'm sure the slashdot crowd could answer: what exactly does "turn-key" mean here?
  • Ah yes, you must work for the government.
    Yes with the fiscal year ending we all have lots
    of money to spend this year or we'll loose it
    next year. Don't you love working for the government?
    Sometimes I think the only job in America that
    is better than working for the government is being a domestic cat.
  • Has nice setups. www.wsm.com
  • Try Aspen Systems [aspsys.com] or Einux Network Solutions [einux.com]

    Not sure how "out of the box" the Einux ones are, but you can get a 10 node dual-Athlon setup for around $25k.
  • You might want to check around to see what companies locally might make them. IBM clusters are avaliable through a number of smaller companies, most will ship them just about anywhere in the country, but you can save a ton on freight be finding one local. There is one in Houston, TX that I know of if you are in the Texas area, that is PCPC, Inc. (www.pcpcdirect.com) that custom configures and builds IBM clusters

  • Microway [microway.com] also sells these toys. If you want Alpha, look here [microway.com]. If your budget runs more to Athlons, look here [microway.com]. Unfortunately, you will have to choose between 8 and 16 CPUs on the low end here; they don't have a 10 CPU Athlon cluster.

    You should think a bit about whether the extra abilities of the Alpha boxes are worth the extra bucks for your application. One thing which I think that I remember about the Alphas is that they use a crossbar switch to link the several processors on a motherboard to memory, et cetera. This should give better throughput. They also have huge caches which should help with big matrices. I think that if you have lots of little problems which should be run in parallel, more nodes with lower price and capability per node might be the way to go.


    I remember back in the days of the XT, Microway used to sell math coprocessor and video boards for PCs which cost more than the box you hooked them to, along with high-grade compilers which would put that hardware to work. They were once the place to get hardware and software for doing seroius number-crunching on a PC.

  • but it may take a while before it gets shipped (grin)

    rm -rf /bin/ladin
  • Buy ten machines, and build it yourslef? I mean.. that's all a beowulf is... it was a project to work on using off the shelf hardware for parallel processing.

    DO you have some app that needs it? I mean, you can't just run anything....
    Did some department just come up with some app already designed with the PVM libraries or something?
  • or was it so obvoius that he's asking this for those reasons?

    I'm not complaming - i'm just finally glad to see /. as something USEFUL.

    fight on!
  • But am I the only person here to think "working on my morning M&Ms?"
  • I've seen a few stories about researchers looking for a cheap, quick, and powerful cluster for their research purposes who decided to go with Apple hardware. One group got an 8-node iMac cluster up and running in less than a day (which I can't find the link for.. sorry).

    A quick search of Apple's site actually mentions clusters [apple.com] [apple.com]. Perhaps 10 dual G4's would suit your needs?

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