(trans)portable Beowulf (fwd)

[Robert G. Brown]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:32:47 +0000
From: John Hearns <john.hearns at framestore.co.uk>
To: rgb at phy.duke.edu
Subject: (trans)portable Beowulf

Bob, for some reason my posts to the Beowulf list are not getting
through.
Could you kindly forward this message on, as part of the thread
on transportable Beowulfs?
I have seen an excellent system, which would fit the bill perfectly.
I'm quite excited by the idea of having a supercomputer which
you can drive or fly around.

Thankyou.
John Hearns




Jim Lux wrote:
>
> I am contemplating building a (trans)Portable Beowulf for field reduction
> and visualization of measurement data. It's a fairly computationally
> intensive problem basically involving creating an FEM model that replicates
> observed measurements, but, fortunately, is fairly coarsegrained, so
> interprocessor comm requirements aren't dominating (yet).
>
Jim, at last year's UK Linux Developer' Conference there was a
marvellous talk,
and demo, by a UK company which sells a system which is just what you
need.
http://www.agelectronics.co.uk
http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2000/speaker-AC.shtml


Using a standard PC tower system, they have PCI cards which carry
PowerPC processors.
The PowerPCs are run as a small cluster.
They also had a PCI extender available, so you aren't limited to the
number
of PCI slots on the motherboard, as I remember.
The speaker said that one of their main markets was automotive testing -
ie. putting heavy duty computer power into a vehicle on a test track or
road.
Also I assume there are military applications :-)
He demoed the 'classic' PVM Povray running on the 'cluster in a case'.
I for one was impressed.

I had quite a long talk with the speaker, Adrian Cox, aferwards -
let me know if I can tell you any more, or help you contact the company.
This sounds a great project you have.



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John Hearns                       Systems Engineer
FrameStore             http://www.framestore.co.uk
Tel 020-7208-2600                020-7208-2626 Fax
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