Scyld and pvfs ...

[Franz Marini]

Hi all,

 I'm considering upgrading our cluster from the current patched rh 6.1 to
Scyld, but I have a couple of questions...

 First, our cluster has the following configuration :

  1 server node w/ 2 IBM 16Gb uwscsi2 hd in soft RAID 1, DLINK DFE-570Tx
nic acting as frontend and nfs server for the nodes
  1 switch 3COM SuperStack II 3300 XM 
  16 diskless nodes w/128 Mb RAM w/out swap mounting root from the server
each w/ 3COM 3C905C-Tx
nic

 We're upgrading the nodes w/ 15 Gb EIDE HDs 'cause we need (for really
short periods) some swap space (i.e. we have a program that in the startup
phase allocates a LOT of mem on each node, then it releases it and use
only about 32-64 Mb).
 In the spare space on the hds I'd like to install the OS (on a small,
1Gb, partition) and use the remaining space in part as local /scratch and
for the most part with PVFS as a /temp space w/ performance in between the
NFS mounted homes and the local temp.
 
 The question is : is possible to use Scyld to have a complete os install
on every node (and not just a small boot partition) and to make it coexist
w/ PVFS ?

 The problem is that we don't have a lot of Net bandwidth and using NFS
mounted root could add some (unneeded) traffic to the local
network. Having Myrinet could lesser the overhead due to NFS mounted root,
but I think it's a little too expensive for our needs.

 Thank you all in advance,


Franz

  

 
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Franz Marini
Sys Admin and Software Analyst,
Dept. of Physics, University of Milan, Italy.

"There's nothing wrong in M$oft that Linux can't cure..."

email : marini at pcmenelao.mi.infn.it
phone : 0039 2 2392221
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