[Beowulf] good 24 port gige switch

[Gerry Creager N5JXS]

Caveats:
1.  It's been arough week.
2.  I've got some specific opinions about 3Com hardware these days.

I just ordered a 16 node cluster.  I'm using the Foundry EdgeIron 24G as 
the basic switch.  More than adequate backplane, pretty good small and 
large packet performance as tested with an Anritsu MD1230.  Cost is 
expected to be about $3000, for the 24 port model.  I'm getting 2, and 
have dual nics on the nodes, for some playing with channel bonding, and 
so that I've got a failover hot spare if/when one dies.  Remember: 
Murphy was an optimist.

For the record I don't expect the EdgeIron to die, but conversely 
(perversely?) I expect any and all network devices to die at the least 
opportune time!

I didn't even consider 3Com.  Didn't test it.  The 3Com "gigabit" 
hardware I've seen recently in the LAN-space was usually capable of gig 
uplinks, but had trouble with congestion when gig and 100BaseT were 
mixed on the switch.

HP had been OEM'ing Foundry.  I'm not sure if that's still the case or 
if they went recently to someone else; my Foundry rep won't say, and I 
don't have a close HP rep.

We have programmatically stayed away from Asante in our LAN operations 
here.  That translates to no experience an dno contacts.  Sorry.

Cluster should be in within a month, and so should the switches.  I'll 
do some latency runs and report objective data.

gerry

Russell Nordquist wrote:
> Does anyone have a recommendation for a good 24 port gige switch for
> clustering? I know this issue has been discussed, but I didn't find any
> actual manufacturer/models people like. Were not really looking at the
> very high end models from Cisco, but I am wary of the many low end
> switches on the market with regard to bisectional bandwidth issues.
> 
> Has anyone tested/used the HP, Asante, Foundry, 3com, or Extreme switches
> and found one to be better than the other. There are a bunch of 24 port
> gige switches for <$2000, but are they any good? are some better than
> others (likely so i'd guess)?
> 
> thanks and have a good weekend.
> russell
> 
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Russell Nordquist
> UNIX Systems Administrator
> Geophysical Sciences Computing
> http://geosci.uchicago.edu/computing
> NSIT, University of Chicago
>  - - - - - - - - - - -
> 
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Network Engineering -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.847.8578
Page: 979.228.0173
Office: 903A Eller Bldg, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843

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