Paper showing Linpack scalability of mainstream clusters

[RICHARD,BRUNO (HP-France,ex1)]

Hi Roger,

What we mean by "mainstream" is that these could be your grandma's machine,
unmodified except for the Software.
Actually I-Cluster *is* the first cluster of this type to enter the TOP500.
Some PC-based clusters are already registered there of course, but they
cannot be called "mainstream": Most require specific (non-mainstream at
all!) connectivity such as Myrinet, SCI, Quadrix... Some are based on PCs
equipped with several LAN boards (not mainstream either).
If you restrict to off-the-shelf monoprocessor (excluding non-mainstream
Alpha, MIPS and such) interconnected through standard Ether100, no cluster
ever entered the TOP500 list. And I-Cluster is still the only one to be
there. Let me know if you think otherwise.

Regards, -bruno
_____________________________________________
Bruno RICHARD - Research Program Manager
HP Laboratories
38053 Grenoble Cedex 9 - FRANCE
Phone: +33 (4) 76 14 15 38
bruno_richard at hp.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Roger L. Smith [mailto:roger at ERC.MsState.Edu] 
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 15:33
To: RICHARD,BRUNO (HP-France,ex1)
Cc: 'Scott Shealy'; beowulf at beowulf.org
Subject: RE: Paper showing Linpack scalability of mainstream clusters


On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, RICHARD,BRUNO (HP-France,ex1) wrote:

> Sorry Scott, I sent you a wrong reference. The actual link is 
> http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2001/HPL-2001-206.html. Enjoy, 
> -bruno


I'd be REALLY interested in hearing how you justify the following statement
in the paper:

"Being the first ones to enter the TOP500 using only mainstream hardware
(standard PCs, standard Ethernet connectivity)...".

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