[Beowulf] grid

[Robert G. Brown]

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, Rajiv wrote:

> Dear All,

> 1. I would like to implement grid computing in Linux. Any suggestions
> on what opensource package to use.

SGE is probably the basic tool of choice, although Open Mosix is another
possibility.  There are also more advanced and complex tools under
development for use in large scale grids shared accross domain
boundaries that some googling will doubtless turn up.  These do things
like manage access and authentication over a WAN.

>     2. Is there any free grid projects in Windows

Don't know.  Don't really care, truthfully.  It is probable that some of
the same open source tools that work under linux have Windows ports.  It
is equally probable that they won't work as well there, will have bugs,
will be "expensive" by the time you finish paying for compilers and
libraries, and -- what's the point? 

You can easily set up a WinXX node with a PXE ethernet interface to dual
boot or diskless boot linux (assuming that you ask because you have
access to a small pile of windows machines that you can use but cannot
completely reinstall as linux).  If they have 3-6 GB of free disk,
installing dual boot likely makes sense.  If they have no free disk to
speak of but have adequate physical memory (probably at least 256 MB of
main memory) setting them up to run a diskless linux makes sense -- just
boot them into linux from the PXE interface, use them as a cluster, and
reboot them into WinXX when done, without ever touching the disk or
windows installation.

   rgb

> 
> Regards,
> Rajiv

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu