It's Mosix what I need! (more help)

[Kian Chang Low]

Well,

If you are thinking of dual processors system, AMD is out of the picture.
At the moment, there is no chipset that can support dual AMD chips.
Although they are supposed to come out with such a chipset later part of
this year.

Kian Chang.




Javi Ortiz <postjoh at evalga.geneti.uv.es> on 05/18/2000 08:14:38 PM

To:   beowulf at beowulf.org
cc:    (bcc: Kian Chang Low/SPR/FE/VDGC)

Subject:  It's Mosix what I need! (more help)




Hi,

Thank you for every one for your comments and suggestions and to drive me
to Mosix (My before e-mail was 'Is Boewulf what I need?').

Now I need to make the HW order but I still don't have a clear vision of
the system. So I ask you some questions that deal with the HW purchase.

I'm sending this e-mail to the beowulf list although I'm going to
use Mosix, because it seems to me that for the HW Beowulf experience is
what I need. If I'm wrong, just don't reply and I will understand I must
apply to the mosix list.

Before to make the questions I'm going to explain what I have though for
now.

System configuration: (you can see the attached 'system.jpg'.)
---------------------
* The master node receives all the conexions from users. Mosix assign
processes to the cient nodes.
* The master node is a Firewall.
* Each client node has one HD for linux and swap.
* The master node has SCSI HD's for /home and /applications.

HW list:
--------
N= 15 .. 25
x= depends of cost

* 1       Ethernet Switch
* 1       KVM switch

* 1       SCSI card
* x       SCSI HD's
* 1       DAT driver
* 1       CD-ROM driver
* 1 (or N)     Floppy driver
* 1       Monitor
* 1       Mouse
* 1       Keyboard

* N       Tower PC
* N+1          Ethernet adapter
* N*x          SDRAM memory
* N       Motherboard
* N       Dual Processor
* N-1          4 GB IDE Drives
* 1 (or N)     SVGA card
* N+1          Net cable

* N (or 0)     Cables PC/KMV_Switch
* x       Uninterruptible Power Supply


Questions:
----------

* Is it recommendable to clone the node system disks and never access it
directly but by telnet?
* Is AMD ok for this kind of system?
* Perhaps it's a stupid question but ... 8-S ... Do all the nodes need
video cards for the X applications run ok?
* Is it a good idea to centralize all the HD's in the master node? Could
it produce conflicts in the access and so reduce substantially the
access time? Is it better to distribute the HD's in the nodes and give
access via NFS?
* If it's better to centralize HD's, is there problems whith diskless
nodes. What is better, to boot from floppy or from NFS?
* Is the relation improvement/cost ok between 100Mb/1Gb Eth. card?

Any suggestion out of this questions is welcome !!!!

Thanks.

Javi.

-----------------------------------------------
Bioinformatics - University of Valencia - Spain
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