Monday, May 17, 2010

Cluster Meetings X & XI - If at first, you don't succeed....








Aim 5/18: Let's install a Rocks Cluster (with crossover cable).
Aim 6/01: Let's try OSCAR over CENTOS too!


Reading 5/18: Building Parallel Programs, Chapters 10
Reading 6/01: Building Parallel Programs, Chapters 11
Attending 5/18: SteveB, DevonB, ArthurD
Attending 6/01 (last meeting): TBD


OK, this has been a tough year!  Thanx for your help doing all that research this year into 64bit Linux distros related to clustering.  Based on your work, I think we have 4 options open to us as well as next year's CIS(Computing Independent Study) team:


1) We can try to install a head node with the Rocks DVD.  Then we can install one worker node via PXE using a crossover cable thereby avoiding all the networking issues we've encountered with the new gigabit switched ethernet network.  Then, at least, we'll have 4 cores to play with!


2) I installled two nodes using the CentOS DVD.  We should be able to install OSCAR on these two nodes thereby getting 4 cores to experiment with.


3) I'm still not convinced that we couldn't PXE boot all 50 cores off a pelican HPC CD (or BCCD) as we did a couple of times last year.  IDK what's wrong with PXE boot lately....


4) Maybe we need a corporate sponsor to donate equipment to the school for this project so we can control all aspects of designing this cluster from the network up! 

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