[Beowulf] Re: Beowulf digest, Vol 1 #1656 - 5 msgs

[Michael Gindonis]

On Wednesday 04 February 2004 19:02, beowulf-request at scyld.com wrote:
> From: Mark Hahn <hahn at physics.mcmaster.ca>
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Experiences with MPI over LSI's Fusion-MPT chipset
>
> > I noticed in the Linux kernel configuration that there is support for
> > LSI's Fusion-MPT chipset. Also, it is possible to run MPI over this.
>
> huh?  afaikt, it's just another overly expensive, overly complicated hw
> raid controller.  I guess there must be a market for this kind of
> wrongheaded crap, but I really don't understand it.

Hi Mark, 

When purchasing a cluster or cluster hardware, one can spend as little as 20 
Euro ( ~30 CAD) per node on interconnects to more than 1000 Euro per node for 
Myrinet or Scali.

The Fusion-MPT chipset adds about 100 Euro to the cost of a motherboard. 100 
Euro per node is much eaier to justify than 1000 Euro per node when the 
Cluster when the cluster will not be primarly running tighly coupled parallel 
problems. If the performance of MPI of Fusion-MPT is much better than than 
Ethernet with good latency, it becomes a cheap way to add flexibilty to a 
cluster.

Here is some info about it the Chipset... 

http://www.lsilogic.com/files/docs/marketing_docs/storage_stand_prod/
integrated_circuits/fusion.pdf

http://www.lsilogic.com/technologies/lsi_logic_innovations/
fusion___mpt_technology.html

There is also information in the in the linux kernel documentation about 
running MPI over this kind of interconnect.

... Mike
--
Michael Kustaa Gindonis
Helsinki Institute of Physics, Technology Program
michael.gindonis at hip.fi

http://wikihip.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/Main/MichaelGindonis

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