[Beowulf] Re: Setting up a new Beowulf cluster

[Berkley Starks]

Thank you all for the help and support here.  With what has been presented
here, and sound considerations, we have decided on a home for our Beowulf
cluster.  The room is already sound proofed, and well air conditioned.  As
for people worrying about noise, it will be housed with out vacuum chamber,
so those going into the room and doing stuff are already used to a little
bit of noise.

The floor is rated to hold more than enough computers and the AC in there is
phenomenal.  I just finished meeting with campus physical facilities the
other day and have got the budget requestioned and approved to allow us
independent AC control of the room.

Right now we are seeing how much money can be appropriated for the actual
construction of the cluster.

Thank you all so much for your input and support so far.  It has helped a
lot.

Berkley Starks

On Feb 14, 2008 9:39 AM, David Mathog <mathog at caltech.edu> wrote:

> Jim Lux <James.P.Lux at jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> > >>quiet down a rack because to first order sound insulation == heat
> > >>insulation. \
> >
> > Actually, no.. good acoustic isolation is not good thermal
> > isolation.  Sure, things like fiberglass batts provide thermal
> > insulation and also (slightly) attenuate high frequencies.
>
> I guess I should have used => or some other "implies".  Sound insulators
> tend to be good heat insulators, heat insulators are generally not good
> sound insulators.
>
> I spent way too long trying to quiet down a rack when it had to live in
> a classroom.  Mass loaded vinyl on all 4 sides worked fairly well
> to stop the noise coming out that way, but then it just turned into a
> big speaker enclosure and directed nearly as much sound out the fan
> holes, where it bounced off the ceiling and floor.  And the rack exhaust
> fans (2 very high capacity 120mm fans on the top) were not able to keep
> it cool when it was fully sound insulated.  The rated capacity
> of those two fans was more than the sum of all the little ones in the
> nodes, but the air flow was too restricted, I think mostly by the narrow
> space between the node's front panels and the front insulator panel.
> Thankfully it finally moved to a machine room and the noise problem went
> away.
>
> Anyway, it is a much easier to sound insulate a room than it is a single
> noisy rack.
>
> David Mathog
> mathog at caltech.edu
> Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech
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