Re: Hardware for a cluster

[jordi <mumismo@wanadoo.es>]

> - Dual mobos or single ones ? Some people here say that with dual systems
> you fill half the space. Is it really an advantage to use dual processor
> boards ?
It depends in the apps but surely if you are going to build a cluster your 
apps will take real advantage of this. Even so the second processor won't 
just double the performance so it's a matter of money.

> - Is PentiumIV so much better that a PIII ? Will nowadays gcc (3.0.1)
> generate code for PIV ?
No it doesn't. they are working in it. You can pay the Intel's Linux 
compiler. If you won't generate special code for PIV , PIV don't get very 
good results and any other option will be better. It's a expensive option 
also.
Anyway if what you want is FPU power then a Athlon it's much better , you 
don't need to recompiler and rocks. If you really are low in money duron is 
the option. 
 I don't know if PIV dual exist.

> - we are planning to spent not too much money on the network just now, we
> will see if Ether-100Mb is enough for our communication requierementes (and
> wait for next year grants...). But I think
> that an Starfire with 4 ports will be good for internal network, with
> channel bonding. Or perhaps we can bind NFS to eth0 and rest of comms to
> eth1, etc. Any known issues ?
If you don't want to spend money i think that approach is the best. Just use 
1 eth 100 network (really cheap) . You'll surely will upgrade soon (adding 
other network). Depending in what aplications are running in the cluster you 
can split them between your eth networks  in a intelligent way. It mainly 
depends on the apps.

Linux-cluster: generic cluster infrastructure for Linux
Archive:       http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-cluster/