[Beowulf] Altix vs. Beowulf

[Peng Li]

We might get a grant for a new cluster/HPC server in a few months. The cluster/server will be mostly used to run MPI, PVM programs. We have a home-built 16-node P3 cluster running Rocks 3.3.0 and an Aspen cluster running Redhat 9.0. We are not quite satisfied with the built quality and reliability of the current clusters.

Any experience with SGI Altix? Does Altix have real advantages over Beowulf? Anyone has any recommendations for good cluster vendors?

Thanks,
Peng