[H-GEN] HUMBUG cluster WAS Re: [HUM-TALKS] Talk /Demonstration of MOSIX

[Andrew Pullin]

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Hi All,
    I had a chat to my mate last night about talking at Humbug meetings and
helping out with a cluster. His initial response was could we wait until he
finishes his PHD thesis on the topic in July, but any time after that - no
problem.

    The suggestions he made were that we would need only about 4 relatively
low power machines to get started, 1 "front end" machine, and the rest of
the cluster. The machines wouldn't have to be same spec - but it would help.
He suggested using Beowulf or another OSS package called LAM MPI. Apparently
there are only 6 basic commands to master in parallel programming, and about
200 all together in this second package. Once you get the hang of it, it is
fairly straight forward. As far as portability is concerned, building a pull
down mini cluster is easy to do, or we could set it up somewhere and do
everything over the net - up to and including running some sort of "wide
area cluster" using TCP/IP.

    Hitcho's idea of running multiple instances of VMWare, while novel, is
possible, but can be a real pain in the bum to set up and get working
properly, and while we could learn the concepts with this, the whole point
is to use cheap hardware to get performance, not mega expensive hardware to
get the same thing (Sorry Hitcho - but I did like the idea).

    My mate's suggestions on what we could do with such a network were -
boost our brownie points up on SETI at Home, or lease time to someone doing
molecular folding or some such. Personally I like the idea of a publicity
stunt doing the SETI at Home thing. It would get good publicity because it was
a bit unusual. It would definitely get great publicity from Slashdot. It is
the sort of thing we could "maybe" get a sponsor for who would ultimately
"donate" 4 machines for a mini cluster for the group. Once we got some
publicity (and the cluster), we could then look at other applications to
support our habit, like maybe the folding thing.

    If people are willing to support such an idea, I would be willing to
co-ordinate such an effort and get it off the ground - mail me off list and
we can link up. I will only co-ordinate the cluster project however. I am
willing to link it up with an event like an installfest, but I don't have
time to organise both. We have had an offer for 30 machines so far for the
demo, so we have theoretically got a start - lets keep it rolling.
    Cheers!
        Andrew.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Stanford" <rob at rotapile.com>
To: <general at lists.humbug.org.au>
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 7:17 PM
Subject: Re: [H-GEN] HUMBUG cluster WAS Re: [HUM-TALKS] Talk /Demonstration
of MOSIX


> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>
> On Tue, 2003-01-21 at 16:47, Andrew Pullin wrote:
> > [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug
    ]
> > [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will
vanish. ]
> >
> > Hi All,
> >     I would be interested in "playing" with a Beowulf Cluster at
meetings.
> > As a suggestion - would it have to be very big? We could maybe just use
3-4
> > machines from old hardware we have available instead of lots and have a
> > power problem. The idea is to get a cluster to get the basics and the
> > concepts right, the scaling and performance can come later.
> >
> >     Another suggestion I have is we could advertise the meeting by doing
a
> > publicity stunt and build a cluster. I remember a few years ago when
Beowulf
> > was young about a Conference where someone did a demonstration by
literally
> > buying the book at lunchtime, making a phonecall to a hardware supplier,
> > borrowing some hardware, and when it was delivered the next day, built
the
> > 315th fastest super computer in the world by mid afternoon and the cost
was
> > less than US$20000.
> >
> >     We could do the same thing. How about do an installfest and ask a
local
> > supplier to loan us the hardware for a couple of days.
>
> Crikeys, ill help that, I have access to heaps of machines, could
> probably organise at least 30 if the cause is worth it.
>
>  BTW is it arch specific?
> --
> ¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤
>    Robert Stanford
> º¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤º
>
>
> --
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