Cluster hardware: comments,recommendations, and criticisms

[Denby Wong]

I'm helping put together a rack-mounted cluster (around 30 nodes) and
came up with the following hardware.  This is largely for
compute-bound scientific applications.  I'd appreciate your comments,
recommendations, and criticism on it.  Higher bandwidth/lower latency
interconnect is not economically feasible at the moment.

Thanks in advance, 
Denby


=====================================================================
Switches:
=========

Cisco 3548 XL (stackable)
      48 port 10/100 RJ-45; 2 GBIC based Gig ports     
							
Main node:
============

Dual AMD AthlonMP 1.2GHz cpu's (2)                         
Tyan Tiger Motherboard (s2420)                                                                 
2 Heatsinks and fans: Tai-Sol CGK742092                  
2 Sticks of 512 MB ECC PC2100 DDR RAM (1 GB reg) Promise 
Linksys 400W Power Supply (POW-400-EL)                   
Adaptec SCSI card - 19160 ultra160 scsi card                              
Seagate 36.7 GB SCSI harddrive ST336705LW                                        
ATI Radeon 64MB SDRAM AGP video card                  
Sony 1.44 Floppy 		              
Acer 56X cdrom CD656A                                 
2 3com 3c905c 10/100Mb ethernet card                  
Viewsonic E95 19inch 18VIS .26MM                      
                                                      
				
Compute nodes:
==============

2 AMD AthlonMP 1.2 GHz CPU                                
1 Tyan Tiger mainboard (s2420)                               
2 Heatsinks and fans: Tai-Sol CGK742092               
2 512 MB Stick of ECC DDR PC2100 RAM (1GB reg) Promise 
1 Seagate 20GB 7200 rpm UDMA 100 harddrive (ST320414A) 
1 utility video card (pci)                             
1 Sony 1.44 Floppy 			       
1 3com 3c905c 10/100Mb ethernet card                   
                                                       
                                                       
1 2U chassis: Rackmountpro     RM2U2066-P300W           
   - includes 3 chassis fans and 3 slot PCI riser card
   - includes 300W power supply, fan monitor

Note: no hard drive backplane devices required since
      we have only one hard drive nor do we have
      critical IO bandwidth considerations

Rack:
=====

Compaq 9142 42U Rack  120663-B21                       

Optional:
  Compaq Stabilizer kit 120673-B21                          
  Compaq Ballast kit    120672-B21                          
  Compaq Rack Fan kit   120677-B21                          


Power Supply:
=============

APC 2250 WATT UPS - 2200 3U Rackmount SU3000RM3U