[Beowulf] scalability

[Douglas Eadline]

The performance of GigE can vary widely based on several
issues:

 - chipset
 - driver
 - driver settings (interrupt coalescing etc.)
 - switch performance under load
 - switch manufacturer

A well tuned GigE network is never as good as
IB or Myrinet, but it can work well for some codes.
You can also try using Open-MX instead of TCP
for MPI communications.

--
Doug

> Hi all,
>
> I have, with my group, a small cluster of about 16 nodes (each one with
> single socket Xeon 3085 or 3110; And I face problem of poor scalability.
> Its
> network is quite ordinary GiGE (perhaps DLink DGS-1024D 24-Port
> 10/100/1000), store and forward switch, of price about $250 only.
> ftp://ftp10.dlink.com/pdfs/products/DGS-1024D/DGS-1024D_ds.pdf
>
> How should I work on that for better scalability?
>
> What could be better affordable options of fast switches? (Myrinet,
> Infiniband are quite costly).
>
> When buying a switch what should we see in it? What latency?
>
>
> Thank you very much.
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--
Doug