fast blackplanes (was Re: Experience with SMC 8624T L2 switch es and nics)
Marc Cozzi
cozzi at nd.edu
Wed Feb 26 09:13:43 PST 2003
Dale,
For me that is the point of concern. A "fast backplane" switch such as
FastIron/BigIron or even the Cisco 6509 series would be nice but the price
for a 100 node cluster could be between 70 and 100K US dollars.
If you are only using 24 or less ports, finding a non-blocking switch that
can handle 48Gb/s is not really an expensive problem.
Trunking capabilities in the SMC switch could allow one to
in-expensively construct a cluster with many more nodes with overall
performance better than simple switches fitted with GBICs.
For a cluster much larger than say 48-64 nodes I don't think you could out
perform the "fast backplane" type switches, however, the SMC tiger seems
to fill a nitch somewhere in between the two.
marc
-----Original Message-----
From: Dale Harris [mailto:rodmur at maybe.org]
Sent: February 25, 2003 5:14 PM
To: 'beowulf at beowulf.org'
Subject: fast blackplanes (was Re: Experience with SMC 8624T L2 switches
and nics)
On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 08:42:47AM -0500, Mark Hahn elucidated:
>
> it is a good deal. I know of a large cluster recently installed
> in Toronto that is very happily using these switches in an agressive
> way (somewhat exotic wiring plan, including trunking.) I believe
> they are quite happy with performance. we have one which I'm
> only starting to evaluate the performance of, but so far, so good.
>
I guess I'm missing something here. How would this compare to going
with a switch that has a large number of ports with a really fast
backplane? Like say a Foundry BigIron 4000, or some such. Is this a
just a cost vs. performance issue? Can these switches be wired in such
a way to out perform a fast backplane?
--
Dale Harris
rodmur at maybe.org
/.-)
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