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11/18/2005
Managing clusters is mostly automated through job schedulers, batch schedulers, and other resource managers and monitors. At CCR, for example, 'Larry' and 'Adam,' the aforementioned administrative nodes, monitor all of the cluster nodes and 'continually ask them, 'Are you still up? Are you still running? Are you healthy?'' says Miller. When problems arise-a file system gets full or a network link g'es down-the human system administrators get notified. If a node ceases to work or a power supply 'explodes,' he says, the job scheduler will continue scheduling, but not on that node.
Recently, the NSF issued a solicitation for systems totaling $30 million. In performance terms, according to Miller, that's 'roughly 10 times U2's speed.' Then four years from now they want it be '100 to a thousand times what U2's speed is.' As he points out, 'There's simply no shortcut in terms of solving some of these big-what they used to call 'grand challenge'-problems without big machines. If you're looking at whatever it may be-the physics of the universe, or biochemical processes in the brain, or analyzing the spread of infections... they just require massive amounts of computing power.'
From humble beginnings as commodity devices, equipment that once only existed on the desktop will continue proving its mettle in dazzling displays of high-performance computing clusters.
Resources
Beowulf, the home of one of the original cluster projects:
www.beowulf.org
Dell Campus Architecture
www.dell4hied.com/solutions_detail.php?si=188&cn=1
Dell High Performance Computing Clusters
www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/clustering_hpcc?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
EMC
www.emc.com
Force10 Networks
www.force10networks.com
IBM
www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/clusters
IBRIX
www.ibrix.com
Myricom
www.myri.com
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
www.ncsa.uiuc.edu
SUNY-Buffalo Center for Computational Research
www.ccr.buffalo.edu
Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
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