Beowulf Cluster Jon Green Jay Hutchinson Scott Hussey Mentor: Hongchi Shi

Goals and Objectives To design and build a successful Beowulf cluster Test its abilities Prove its validity as a computing environment for solving real world problems

What is a Beowulf Cluster ? Vague concept –What type of hardware? –Size thresholds Used to describe a group of networked computing nodes that work towards a common task.

Background – The Name and History In 1994 Thomas Sterling and Don Becker, working at Goddard Space Flight Center,built a cluster consisting of PCs connected by channel bonded Ethernet. The name Beowulf was derived from the old English story.

Low latency communication network Low cost Diminishing returns Application suitability Hardware specialization The Gargleblaster Aspects of designing a Beowulf Cluster

GIVE US AN A !

Background – Cost Effectiveness Historically Beowulf Clusters have used: –open source Unix distributions e.g. Linux –Low cost off-the-shelf computers e.g. PC’s –Low cost network components e.g. 10/100 Mbit Ethernet

Cost associated with Super Computing Standard Supercomputer: $10,000/GFLOPS –U.S. Dept of Energy - ASCI Project Beowulf Supercomputer: <1/10 of the Cost. –KLAT2 costs $650/GFLOPS

Our Hardware.  10 Indy client nodes  R MHZ MIPS Processor  96 Mbytes RAM  10 Mbit Ethernet  1 Intel architected gateway  Allows for multiple network interfaces  Gives us access to cluster for external networks

Our Hardware ethernet switch –Improves network performance

Our Software Linux-MIPS Distribution –Kernel 2.2.x PVM – Parallel Virtual Machine GCC – GNU Compiler Collection

Constraints 1.Money 1.Beowulf philosophy is low cost 2.We are college students 2.Familiarity with operating environment 1.IRIX is not a standard Unix 2.Linux is a common Beowulf environment 3.Indy does not support > 10 Mbit Ethernet

Alternate Solution #1 Dr. Shi’s NT machines Disadvantages – Cost of NT Small number of nodes Can not be dedicated to cluster

Alternate Solution #2 Personal Machines Disadvantages – Not homogeneous Inconvenient

Alternate Solution #3 Dr. Pal’s O2’s Disadvantages – Cost of IRIX Distaste for IRIX Can not be dedicated to cluster

Testing Methods Network latency CPU Performance Scalability of design (ex. 4 nodes vs. 8 nodes)

Testing Methods Parallel applications –AI –NASA Parallel Benchmarks –Texture mapping onto elevation maps

Schedule End of semester –Fully configured OS on nodes –Network infrastructure complete End of Feb. –Finish developing parallel applications –Finish developing testing tools End of March –Have all data from tests gathered and compiled