SCI vs Myrinet for Alpha

[Tom Morris]

David Bremner [SMTP:bremner at unb.ca] wrote:
 
> Having noticed that Dolphin now has supposedly support for Alpha (look
> on www.alphanews.net for links), I wonder if there are
> compelling reasons to consider SCI instead of Myrinet.
> 
> I am looking at about 8 2 proc UP2000 nodes 

What are your buying criteria?  Bandwidth? Latency?  Price?
Each of the interconnects currently supporting Alpha 
(Myricom, Dolphin/Scali, Quadrics) has different strengths.
I have clusters using all three.

When do you plan to buy?  Myricom has introduced interface
cards with higher link speeds and has said that they will soon
introduce matching switches.  Scali has said that it will soon
introduce a new generation of product with 64-bit PCI and
higher speed links.

>     1) The drivers are not open source. Well, this is not just an 
>     ideological issue for me; it seems like a bit  of a maintenence
>     nightmare.

It's worth asking vendors this question specifically rather than
depending on past history because; a) the answer tends to change
over time and b) their behavior is often modified by customer
requests.

> Well, it sounds like my mind is made up, but I am really just starting
> to investigate.

Are these two things mutually exclusive? :-)

Tom