Ethernet-Gigabit-Myrinet in one system

[Mark Hahn]

> Tyan i7500 motherboards contain built-in Gigabit Ethernet and Fast
> Ethernet. What are the best ways to utilize these additional resources in
> the system that will contain Myrinet interconnect as a base communication
> infrastructure.

well, use the 100bT, for sure, since it's practically free (cheap switches).
unfortunately, 1000bT switches are sorta-cheap if small, or hideously
expensive if full-cluster-sized.

so in our upcoming cluster, if we wind up with onboard gigE, we'll first 
just use crossovers to connect pairs of nodes for 4-way MPI, or possibly
try out one of the fairly-cheap small GE switches.

it's important to realize that GE doesn't help much for latency, though
the bandwidth is a nice step up from 100bT.  and I don't think it would be 
at all practical to do something bonding-like across myri and GE.