[Beowulf] Re: scalability

[Douglas Eadline]

> Hi Doug,
>
> I have heard of Open-MX before, do you need special hardware for that? We
> are
> currently using one GB network here on the cluster (for everything: NFS,
> MPI...) and I would like to increase the performance for the parallel
> codes I
> am using (NWChem, cp2k, GAMESS) without dishing out too much money for IB
> or
> Myrinet as the cluster is too small for them (22 nodes right now).
>
> All the best

Open-MX will work over any Ethernet connection. If you have
a recent kernel, it should work in an incremental fashion,
that is, you can install it, build any MPI that supports
MX and run it. It will co-exist just fine with TCP/IP
traffic.

Check the home page: http://open-mx.gforge.inria.fr/

I think the authors read this list.

--
Doug

>
> Jörg
>
> On Thursday 10 December 2009 13:50:51 beowulf-request at beowulf.org wrote:
>> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:45:30 -0500 (EST)
>> From: "Douglas Eadline" <deadline at eadline.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] scalability
>> To: "amjad ali" <amjad11 at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Beowulf Mailing List <beowulf at beowulf.org>
>> Message-ID: <51346.192.168.1.1.1260452730.squirrel at mail.eadline.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>>
>>
>> The performance of GigE can vary widely based on several
>> issues:
>>
>>  - chipset
>>  - driver
>>  - driver settings (interrupt coalescing etc.)
>>  - switch performance under load
>>  - switch manufacturer
>>
>> A well tuned GigE network is never as good as
>> IB or Myrinet, but it can work well for some codes.
>> You can also try using Open-MX instead of TCP
>> for MPI communications.
>>
>> --
>> Doug
>
> --
> *************************************************************
> Jörg Saßmannshausen
> Research Fellow
> University of Strathclyde
> Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry
> 295 Cathedral St.
> Glasgow
> G1 1XL
>
> email: jorg.sassmannshausen at strath.ac.uk
> web: http://sassy.formativ.net
>
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>
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--
Doug