Gigabit copper networking and Cisco gear

[Justin.Baker at csiro.au]

Hi There,

I am in the process of putting together a small 16 node cluster and was hoping to use Intel PRO/1000 NICs and Cisco Gigabit/copper switches. The cluster will need to be support a mix of CPU intensive tasks (with little inter-node communication), plus jobs that require a fair amount of communication between nodes.

The most suitable Cisco switches for a cluster of this size look like the 10+2 port 3550 or the 8 port 3508G.

However, a fairly extensive web based search on Gigabit clusters has turned up almost none which make use of this equipment.
This is even though Cisco recommends the use of these particular Intel NICs with their switches.

Given that these NICs are quite popular, this comes as a bit of a surprise.

Can anyone give me an idea why these switches don't seem to be used for clusters?
Also, if that's correct, what I should use instead?

Thanks in advance,
Justin.