[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: Transport Tool - opinions

[Kyle Davenport]

I meant to say that my magic threshhold had not been reached yet.  I just
checked on MonarchComputer.com and a minimal node would be:

UPS:   $50.00
Motherboards: Asus NForce2 A7N8X Deluxe 333 FSB AMD DDR   $149.00
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2400+ .13 Micron   $135.00
Memory: 512 MB DDR (400) TwinX512-3200LLPT Corsair   $175.00_____
Total: about $500

(note I do not include storage in the node)  The price killer unfortunately
is the ram (and we simply must have 2 sticks for the nForce2 ;), and you
really need a GB ($375 instead).  Note the nForce2 already has 2 on-board
10/100Mb ethernet controllers.  If you could get a similar smp board for
less than twice as much, it would be worth it too.

Your ascii art worked, but still doesn't tell me what the bottleneck might
be.  If it's for database access, I would invest in fast storage and ram
instead of a cluster.  Or are you trying to build your own Google?   They
have 4000 linux servers and still growing.

Kyle


Greg Edwards wrote:
>>>> 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.<<<<