[Beowulf] Three questions on a new Beowulf Cluster

[Reuti]

Hi,

Am 22.02.2008 um 16:50 schrieb John P. Kosky, PhD:

> My company is taking it's first foray into the world of HPC with an  
> expandable architecture, 16 processor (comprised of quad core  
> Opterons), one header node cluster using Infiniband interconnects.  
> OS has tentatively been selected as SUSE 64-bit Linux. The  
> principal purpose of the cluster is as a tool for spacecraft and  
> propulsion design support. The cluster will therefore be running  
> the most recent versions of commercially available software -  
> initially for FEA and CFD using COMSOL Multiphysics and associated  
> packages, NASTRAN, MatLab modules, as well as an internally  
> modified and expanded commercial code for materials properties  
> prediction,with emphasis on polymer modeling (Accelrys Materials  
> Studio). Since we will be repetitively running standard modeling  
> codes on this system, we are trying to make the system as user  
> friendly as possible... most of our scientists and engineers want  
> to use this as a tool, and not have to become cluster experts. The  
> company WILL be hiring an IT Sys Admin with good cluster experience  
> to support the system, however...
>
> Question 1:
> 1) Does anyone here know of any issues that have arisen running the  
> above named commercial packages on clusters using infiniband?
>
> Question 2:
> 2) As far as the MPI for the system is concerned, for the system  
> and application requirements described above, would OpenMPI or  
> MvApich be better for managing node usage?

none of them will manage the node usage - you have to assemble a node  
list for every run by hand. What you might be looking for is a  
resource manager like SGE, Torque, LSF, Condor,... und run parallel  
jobs under their supervision.

-- Reuti


> ANY help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> John
>
> John P. Kosky, PhD
> Director of Technical Development
> Space Propulsion Systems
>
>
>
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