Difference between revisions of "Cluster Design"
From Cluster Documentation Project
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
+ | Clusters are all about design. Indeed, clusters are about designing machines | ||
+ | around problems. When designing a cluster the following questions need to be | ||
+ | may be helpful | ||
+ | |||
+ | Consider your budget? | ||
+ | * Do you need help with software and support? If so, reserve soem funds for this part of the project. | ||
+ | * Do you plan on assembling the cluster yourself? If yes, at what level? Starting from motherboards, cases, memory, processros, etc. can be very tiem consumeing. Buy quality parts | ||
+ | |||
+ | How many processors? | ||
+ | |||
+ | * This depends on your application. How well does you applicaiton scale. Have you tested it on a real cluster? If it is a common application, have other run it on a cluster? | ||
+ | * | ||
+ | |||
+ | What Type of Interconnect? | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Again, this depends on your applicaiton. If you can use Gigabit Ethernet, then you can probabaly by more nodes. If you need a faster interconnect, then you may have to sacrifie nodes for interconnects to stay in your budget. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | |||
Books | Books | ||
* [http://www.phy.duke.edu/resources/computing/brahma/Resources/beowulf_book.php Engineering a Beowulf-Style Compute Cluster by Robert G. Brown ] - A freely available book on building/designing Beowulf style clusters. | * [http://www.phy.duke.edu/resources/computing/brahma/Resources/beowulf_book.php Engineering a Beowulf-Style Compute Cluster by Robert G. Brown ] - A freely available book on building/designing Beowulf style clusters. |
Revision as of 14:42, 24 January 2006
Clusters are all about design. Indeed, clusters are about designing machines around problems. When designing a cluster the following questions need to be may be helpful
Consider your budget?
- Do you need help with software and support? If so, reserve soem funds for this part of the project.
- Do you plan on assembling the cluster yourself? If yes, at what level? Starting from motherboards, cases, memory, processros, etc. can be very tiem consumeing. Buy quality parts
How many processors?
- This depends on your application. How well does you applicaiton scale. Have you tested it on a real cluster? If it is a common application, have other run it on a cluster?
What Type of Interconnect?
- Again, this depends on your applicaiton. If you can use Gigabit Ethernet, then you can probabaly by more nodes. If you need a faster interconnect, then you may have to sacrifie nodes for interconnects to stay in your budget.
Books
- Engineering a Beowulf-Style Compute Cluster by Robert G. Brown - A freely available book on building/designing Beowulf style clusters.