[Beowulf] Re: Why Do Clusters Suck?

[Stuart Midgley]

Of course, you can buy expensive hardware (take our AUD10mil 
Alphaserver SC - based on 127 ES45's for example) and still have every 
CPU replaced, every dimm replaced and every disk replaced over 3 years 
:)  We are still loosing a node disk (10k rpm Ultra SCSI 320 disks) 
roughly every 3-4 days.  Fortunately, our Quadrics has never failed.

Contrast this to our 152 node Dell cluster (single cpu PR350's), which 
has had a couple of disks and a couple of fans fail in 2 years...

Stu.


> For the nodes themselves, you can buy systems with redundant power and
> redundant disk.  You can buy from an system vendor that qualifies
> their hardware much more rigorously than another.  When you buy cheap
> hardware you get cheap hardware.

--
<--------------------------------------------------------------------->
   Dr Stuart Midgley                   |  stuart.midgley at anu.edu.au
   Supercomputer Facility              |  smidgley at netspace.net.au
   Leonard Huxley Building 56          |  +61 (0)2 6125 5988   Work
   Australian National University      |  +61 (0)2 6125 8199   Fax
   CANBERRA   ACT   0200               |  +61 (0)4 1125 2488   Mob