[NTLUG:Discuss] Transport tool - opinions

[Greg Edwards]

Kyle Davenport wrote:
> Hi Greg,
> 
>       I have accumulated a bunch of links in anticipation of my own beowolf
> cluster, but my threshold is <$200/node using the latest hardware.  (The
> nForce2 all-in-one mb is close, but none have built-in Gbit ethernet like
> my server)
> 
> Kyle Davenport
> 

Can you get to $200/node with any CPU speed or system quality today? 
I'm very interested in being able to add/drop nodes with consumer grade 
boxes.

I'd be happy with $800/node.  I'm looking at nforce2 MB, AMD Athlon, 4 
100M NICs (3 PCI plus onboard), 500M to 1G RAM, minimal HD, CDROM, 
Floppy, low end AGP, ATX case.  Onboard nic for general network, one for 
DB server, one for Farm, and one for web server.  The web server is the 
client for the farm and the farm is the client for the DB server.  I've 
considered a 5th NIC to do a sub-farm cluster like Beowolf uses but I'm 
not sure that would buy me anything.

For now I want to solve the data passing/farm management and go back 
later to work on the transfer performance.  The actual load, in the 
early days, should not be my major issue but I want to get the 
architecture right the first time.  I can change the transport tool 
easily as long as I have a sound structure in place.

ASCII art w/o general net - this probably won't work :)

       internet
          ^
          |
   ----------------
   -  web server  - <====o==========================o=============
   ----------------      |                          |
                         v                          v
                  -----------------         -----------------
                  -  farm server  - <=====> -  farm server  - <===
                  -----------------         -----------------
                         ^                          ^
       --------------    |                          |
       -  DB server - <==o==========================o=============
       --------------

-- 
Greg Edwards
New Age Software, Inc. - http://www.nas-inet.com
======================================================
Galactic Outlaw        - http://goutlaw.nas-inet.com
   The ultimate cyberspace adventure!