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Thread: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

  1. #11
    Paradox Sausage DaveW's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    Sounds good! I'm avoiding Cluster computing because i know who the lecturer is, and apparently i'll need a good knowledge of C to get through it. I hate C.

    -Dave
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  2. #12
    Post count? Get over it. Drew's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    Bring it on.

    What's a cluster? (I thought it was a breakfast cereal..)

  3. #13
    Paradox Sausage DaveW's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    It's where you have a lot of computers which share processing power. It's more complicated than that though: a task manager is needed that decided which CPU should compute which tasks.

    Folding@home is a kind of cluster computing, so is the SETI thing-although they're pretty advanced technologically, they're fairly primitive systems compared to real grid/cluster computing systems.

    -Dave
    Quote Originally Posted by jdbnsn
    Ideas are just knowledge soaked in alcohol.
    Quote Originally Posted by jdbnsn
    Did I just get in a Volvo? Volvo's don't have guns!

  4. #14
    Post count? Get over it. Drew's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    So I could 'cluster' two 350mhz PCs and get the effect of a 700Mhz processor, in theory?

  5. #15
    Custom Title Honors chaksq's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    I would love to hear a project log. I was wondering how I could do that.

    This can be done on regularmachines too right not just rackmount? I have way to many useless machines that I could play around with.
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  6. #16
    Talk nerdy to me nil8's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    Quote Originally Posted by DaveW View Post
    It's where you have a lot of computers which share processing power. It's more complicated than that though: a task manager is needed that decided which CPU should compute which tasks.

    Folding@home is a kind of cluster computing, so is the SETI thing-although they're pretty advanced technologically, they're fairly primitive systems compared to real grid/cluster computing systems.

    -Dave
    Which is why a modified unix engine is the basis for most cluster systems. The way that the unix kernel works suits for cluster work fairly well. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. Like I said before, I'm a noob to clusters.

    Distributed computing is somewhat of a world wide cluster, but doesn't give the same effect as seeing a rack full of servers and knowing that they're all linked together, performing a common goal.
    Besides that, it's a basic client/server program. It's just keeping their main servers open to process data and handle a large db of information, instead of chewing through all that work themselves.

    Drew, with the overhead necessary to deal with the communication, handing out processing orders, etc it would be closer to 650 or 600 mhz. Once again, someone put me in my place if I'm wrong.

  7. #17
    Case Modding MoFo Crimson Sky's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    That would be a very cool tutorial. I have a few miniITX boards I'd like to cluster.
    In a time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.

  8. #18
    Yuk it up Monkey Boy! Airbozo's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    Ok then. I will put together a quick outline for myself and then start a new log. Keep in mind that with the ROCKS Cluster software it seems kind of magical how it works. UCSD has done extensive work on this project so sometimes it seems just too easy. I will start with the web server cluster and then move to a 3 node viz server cluster.

    Clusters mean different things to different people. In a webserver cluster you can have a couple different takes on the "cluster" approach. In one scenario called HA (High Availability) clusters, there is one system handling all the work. If that system fails, thye backup node automatically takes over any and all work from the main node. In a compute cluster there is one Master that doles out the jobs to the different nodes based on a pre determined cpu/resource load. What this really means is that when you configure the cluster, you determine at what point you want other nodes to share in the workload. I.E. when node 1 hits 60% of cpu load, the next task is automatically started on node 2. You can even assign _which_ jobs get started on which nodes regardless of the load on any node (damn that was almost poetic!). This technique is called "Load Balancing" and is used on pretty much every large mainframe system out there. I will also have some side notes on each step and why I choose certain options.

    EDIT: For a viz server cluster, the master makes sure that all the slave nodes push the visual data at the same time. This insures that the images on the different nodes stay in sync. You could build a large video wall with many nodes each with 2 displays. You then use the master to play a dvd and all nodes output their portion of the display at the same time providing a LARGE display that appears to be one system.


    Crimson; I was thinking last night about a miniITX cluster mod! (the wife just gave me this dorky stare as I mumbled it during the hockey game last night) hehe I just may ask one of our vendors to sponsor this...
    Last edited by Airbozo; 03-22-2007 at 12:02 PM. Reason: added viz cluster comment
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  9. #19
    Case Modding MoFo Crimson Sky's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    I've seen a few miniitx clusters, this one comes to mind first. 12 x 800Mhz nodes
    In a time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.

  10. #20
    Post count? Get over it. Drew's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any interest in a cluster tutorial?

    If this tutorial is n00b friendly, this is gonna rock so hard.

    Now we know what to do with all the old crap we all got laying around.

    :edit: Do all the Mobos need to be the same?

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