LINUX CLUSTER: vendors & critical issues

[abhishek Sinha]

try looking at 
www.californiadigital.com

They took over VA-Linux hardware divison and i thought
 there cluster were good.May be Californiadigital
still uses VA's expertise.

--- "Walter B. Ligon III" <walt at clemson.edu> wrote:
> --------
> 
> > I would really appreciate if someone could
> recommend a good vendor, who
> > enthusiastically works with academics, understands
> and adequately responds
> > to customer needs and requirements, provides good
> warranty support of
> > hardware and, the most importantly, sells reliable
> state-of-the-art
> > cluster systems.
> 
> We have been very happy with Atipa Technologies -
> They've delivered for
> us quite well.
> 
> As for interconnect - the issue mostly comes down to
> latency versus
> bandwidth and what your application REALLY needs.  I
> see many folks just
> buy the fastest thing without really knowing what
> they need.  A detailed
> explanation is really beyond the scope of an email.
> 
> The other thing to consider is driver support and
> stability of the system
> software.  GigE wins here mostly because it is a
> commodity solution.  It is
> also the cheapest for smallish clusters (like yours)
> as switches of that
> size can be had for a reasonable price.  It delivers
> pretty good bandwidth
> but not as good latency.  My general recommendation
> is that if your app
> is SERIOUSLY in need of extremely low latency, a
> cluster might not be right
> for you - but Myrinet is probably the best choice
> otherwise.
> 
> In the best of all worlds you should try to run your
> code on a couple of
> clusters and get a feeling for what the networking
> needs really are.  The
> exotic interconnects can be a pain to get up and
> keep up and expand in the
> future - if it turns out you really don't need them
> and could have done
> as well with GigE!
> 
> A vendor like Atipa might be able to help you out
> with benchmarks also.
> 
> Good Luck,
> 
> Walt
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Walter B. Ligon III
> Associate Professor
> ECE Department
> Clemson University
> 
> 
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