[H-GEN] Re: Humbug Cluster

[Andrew Pullin]

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Hi Lance (& All),
    I am still interested in organising a Humbug Cluster, I have had some
feedback from the list including yourself. I have also had some feedback
from David Siekel to assist. Some of the feedback has indicated that the
Project was not really permanent (or semi permanent for that matter), and
after chatting with my friend who was doing his PHD on Clustering he made a
few suggestions. What I had in mind for the initial Project was this:

    I know that there are alot of machines out there that just turn up to
meetings, and people would be interested in playing during each meeting, but
it is possible to continue playing without actually being on site
(obviously) at other times. My thoughts were that if people were willing to
donate say four similar spec Pentiums I's to the Group, then the Hardware
and Configuration issues could be explored during the meetings. Further to
that; If one person was the custodian of the equipment, then that person
could assemble the equipment after the meeting somewhere with Net access,
and the Software issues could be explored between meetings, and via a
dedicated SIG list and connection to the cluster. Every now and then, the
SIG could report to the meeting about what was going on.

    The reason I had this kind of Project in mind was that it is very
flexible, without needing alot of resources, but also giving the best
exposure to the group for what we want to do. I know that a few people would
be willing to slap a few machines together each meeting and play (there is
no reason why they can't do it now), but that would not give any continuity
to the Project. A better way as I see it, is to have the dedicated cluster
at each meeting, but allow these people at the meeting who want to take part
with their own machines to connect to the dedicated cluster. This would then
avoid the problem of people arriving and leaving at different times and
taking their equipment with them and having to pull down the Cluster as they
come and go. The other benefit is that one or two people would be able to
get together and work on the Project without having to rely on more people
turning up to actually do anything.

    The other major idea in this concept is to dismantle and set up the
cluster during the week and hang it off the Net so that the group could
access the cluster during the week. The overheads for this would be very low
as most important data would be stored on the cluster, and so the only real
data needs would be module updates, etc or programming, which could be
achieved via ssh for example. The other benefit is that group members could
set up their own machines and write wide area network clustering
applications. The costs of this kind of setup apart from time to set it up
and pull it down for each meeting, would be a low amount for data (depending
on what was being processed) and power (also relatively low for four low
power machines and no monitors etc).

    The major problem for this of course is someone who can become custodian
of the equipment and lug it around everywhere and set it up. There may be
times when this is not required however, and as long as the cluster was
running and connected to the Net, the group could still meet at the Club
meetings and be productive, and still have access to the Cluster via the
Net.

    I think that this solution is best over playing with the Club file
server as was suggested (by all means make the software available), but
since the Clustering group has little or no experience, does the rest of the
club want to risk breaking the file server at club meetings while the rest
of us play? Clustering does involve fiddling with kernels and hardware and I
think that the rest of the club would quickly tire of us monopolising their
major resource at meetings (especially if we accidentally break it). After
speaking with my PHD friend. Hitcho's idea of VMWare clustering, while
commendable and novel way to approach the problem, is probably a bit beyond
the initial expertise of the group, and also might require a single machine
with too many resources to make it work effectively (cost or otherwise).

    These are just my thoughts and ideas on how I think we should go about
setting up a Humbug Cluster and SIG. I am quite happy to entertain any other
ideas people may have (after all, part of setting it up will be working out
what kind of configuration we want and need). All of the suggestions so far
have had their merit in their own way, but I still believe that having
actual dedicated hardware is the best way to go. Unfortunately I am working
and in Melbourne for the next two meetings, but I am willing to continue to
discuss this issue until the next meeting I can attend. My offer of
coordinating the SIG is still on the table, so feel free to post to the list
and continue the discussion.
    Cheers!
        Andrew.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lance Edwards" <lanceedwards at optushome.com.au>
To: "Andrew Pullin" <andrew at hotspurbgc.com.au>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 5:24 PM
Subject: Humbug Cluster


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>
> Hi Andrew,
> You may not know me (Lance Edwards), I have only attended a few Humbug
> meetings, I am a  member.
>
> I am writing to inform you that I am interested in helping to build a
Cluster
> (if it's not too late to join in).
>
> Unfortunately I have no experience with Clusters, MOSIX or Beowulf - but I
am
> keen.
>
> Do you plan on building a dedicated cluster or only during humbug
meetings?
> I do not have a "spare" computer so the first option is out for me.
>
> Cheers,
> Lance
>
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