Building your own supercomputer using Ubuntu and Kerrighed:

[nt300]

Building your own supercomputer using Ubuntu and Kerrighed:
http://www.stevekelly.eu/cluster.shtml

Like to thank Steve Kelly for this wonderful written step by step guide in building your own Super PC.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Thats an interesting read.

 

[1freedude]

The thing I don't get...how is gigabit lan sufficient?

 

[yogurt_21]

that's a cluster, not a supercomputer.

 

[LordJummy]

that's a cluster, not a supercomputer.

Most "super computers" are just clusters of computers. There is no single super computer due to hardware constraints.

 

[Disparia]

What property or properties do you use to determine the category/term to use?

While yes, I can see some things being implied by either, at the core these terms are synonymous, no? At least, that's how I've been using them for as long as I remember. Goes all the way back to when Cray was still making supercomputers and was performance king.

 

[OneMoar]

this is not anyware near the power of a true SOC/cluster setup its just a bunch of networked machines working together interesting none the less

 

[Athlon2K15]

Interesting he chose QX chips instead of the much cheaper Q6600

 

[OneMoar]

Interesting he chose QX chips instead of the much cheaper Q6600

because its a server board .. and the qx chips have more cores

 

[Athlon2K15]

because its a server board .. and the qx chips have more cores

you obviously dont have a clue what your talking about.QX chips do not have more cores there just unlocked:shadedshu

and second if it was a server board he would be using Xeons. lol

The board he was using
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5B_V/

 

[OneMoar]

Motherboards: SuperMicro X7DVL-E (X6)
Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar (X3 1Tb in raid 1 on head node. No disks in compute nodes) mounted on "/"
RAM: 72Gb (6 x 12Gb. Each node has 6 Kingston 2Gb DDR2 modules)
CPU: intel quad core Xeon E5420 (X12, 48 Cores of low temperature CPU power!)
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000V/X7DVL-E.cfm
more accuately the q6600 doesnt support dual sockets ...
and no the parts he listed in build 1 I would't waste time on

 

[Athlon2K15]

Thats the cluster he built in 2008, not the one he used for tutorial

 

[OneMoar]

Thats the cluster he built in 2008, not the one he used for tutorial

he used it as a example ...... as the BARE minimum specs you would need to use to make it even viable
If you where going todo this your best bet would be a few 2600k's and dual port gigabit networking
if he really did buy a socket 775chip for this ... hes a idiot .....

 

[Disparia]

The thing I don't get...how is gigabit lan sufficient?

Ideally, high-latency optimized workloads for the nodes.

Like with 3D animation. Send individual frame data to each of the nodes, after minutes/hours/longer, the node returns the rendered frame.

Also, like when I write web apps. Can execute dozens of calls locally in same time I can make a single call to a remote database. I tailor the app to it's intended underlying hardware. With the remote db scenario, I'll be making the db do as much work as possible per call, to make as few calls as possible.

 

[yogurt_21]

Most "super computers" are just clusters of computers. There is no single super computer due to hardware constraints.

supercomputers use blades, clusters do not.

that's a cluster, not a supercomputer. Lan or even fiber is plenty capable for many things, but it's far too limited when it comes to the demanding needs to weather forcasting, quantum physics, or molecular modeling.


a cluster is budget oriented.

a supercomputer is not.

 

[LordJummy]

LOL, you are so flat out wrong it made me chuckle out loud.

a cluster is budget oriented.

a supercomputer is not.

^ this right here shows just how wrong you are.

How in the world did you come up with that? Clusters are budget oriented? The word cluster just means several things bundled together.

"Super Computers" are just high end clusters of servers. "Blades" is a generic term used to describe a single server unit that is part of a cluster. They are called blades because they are usually vertical, thin, rackmounted units that fit into a larger rackmounted chassis. That is all.


(this comes from over 13 years of experience in the web hosting industry, not a wikipedia article. )