[Beowulf] any gp-gpu clusters?

[Eric Shook]

Hi Mark,

I am a part of new research group that is considering adding gp-gpu 
technologies to our cluster, unfortunately we have the same questions 
which you raised.  Which platform (ctm or cuda), development tools, 
configuration, etc.  If we decided to add gpu technologies it would most 
likely only be added to 1-2 hosts so we can test its viability.  So we 
are not developing a gpu-oriented cluster like you asked, but if the 
viability testing is successful we may look at it in the future.

Do you have experience developing for GPUs?  If so what was your 
experiences and/or results?  Most particularly how high is the learning 
curve?

thanks,
Eric

Mark Hahn wrote:
> Hi all,
> is anyone messing with GPU-oriented clusters yet?
> 
> I'm working on a pilot which I hope will be something like 8x 
> workstations, each with 2x recent-gen gpu cards.
> the goal would be to host cuda/rapidmind/ctm-type gp-gpu development.
> 
> part of the motive here is just to create a gpu-friendly infrastructure 
> into which commodity cards can be added and refreshed every 8-12 
> months.  as opposed to "investing" in quadro-level cards which are too 
> expensive enough to toss when obsoleted.
> 
> nvidia's 1U tesla (with two g80 chips) looks potentially attractive,
> though I'm guessing it'll be premium/quadro-priced - not really in 
> keeping with the hyper-moore's-law mantra...
> 
> if anyone has experience with clustered gp-gpu stuff, I'm interested in 
> comments on particular tools, experiences, configuration of the host
> machines and networks, etc.  for instance, is it naive to think that 
> gp-gpu is most suited to flops-heavy-IO-light apps, and therefore doesn't
> necessarily need a hefty (IB, 10Geth) network?
> 
> thanks, mark hahn.
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-- 
Eric Shook