SMC8624T vs DLINK DGC-1024T / Jumbo Frames ?

[rochus.schmid at ch.tum.de]

dear beowulfers, 
 
we are in a similar situation as dave: we get an 8nodes dual-xeon cluster 
(with tyan e7501 mobo) with intel gige on board. and now the "switch issue" 
comes up. my vendor also suggested the DLINK, whereas i found the discussion 
on the (more expensive managed) SMC on this list supporting jumbo frames. 
the issue was whether or not any of the cheaper (unmanaged) switches support 
jumbo frames. i couldnt figure out if this is resolved, yet. it sounded like 
they might, but since they are unmanaged the problem is to switch it on or 
off. is that right? 
 
i also found this document: 
http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/Publications/ HalsteadPubs/usenix_halstead.pdf 
it says that the effect on bandwith with jumbo frames is only seen for tcp/ip 
commun (netpipe) but is completely lost using MPI. since my code is MPI based 
it wouldn't matter to have jumbo frames and i could go with the cheaper DLINK. 
is this info right? or outdated? missunderstood? 
 
any hints highly appreciated. 
 
greetings 
 
   rochus 
 
 
Quoting Dave Lane <dlane at ap.stmarys.ca>: 
 
> Can anyone comment on the strengths/weaknesses of these two 24-port 
> gigabit  
> switches. We're going to be building a 16 node dual-Xeon cluster this  
> spring and were planning on the SMC switch (which has received good 
> review  
> here before), but a vendor pointed out the DLINK switch as a less 
> expensive  
> alternative. 
>  
> ... Dave 
>  
 
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