Myrinet vs. Dolphin

[Greg Lindahl]

> The bad part is that the while the Myrinet 2000 equipment is backward
> compatible with the older version, they are no longer selling the older
> equipment, so I'm forced to pay for new, bleeding edge technology when
> I'll only be getting the performance of the older technology.

Yes and no. My recommendation was that you buy a new switch, so you
will get the benefit of the new cards. And they do have a trade-in
program for old adapter cards: http://www.myri.com/news/00701/, $500
trade-in value.

> 	Also, in response to Patrick's response.  We were told by Myrinet
> (specifically David PeGan) that in order to get to 24 nodes we would
> need to do the following (direct quote from E-mail):

David PeGan is a sales guy, not a technology guy, and he would be the
first to tell you that. Ask him for a quote for:

trade in 12 old cards: $6000 credit
24 Myrinet 2000 cards
24 LAN cables
a chassis switch with 3 8-port LAN blades

I believe this would be a bit cheaper than what he told you, and has the
benefit of getting the increased bandwidth, plus it has full bisection
bandwidth and future exandability.

> but this could really only be done through Myricom, since
> we would need some kind of guarantee that we would get the needed
> performance out of them.  Maybe they could have their engineers check
> them out and approve them as Myricom Certified Used or something like
> that (sounds like something that would be done with a car, but hey this
> stuff actually costs more than my car).

As for this last bit, that's a reason for buying Myrinet through a
reseller -- we offer guarantees on your actual applications. But a
guarantee is not free.

-- g