[Beowulf] What is a "proper" machine count for a cluster

[Mathew Shember]

Mark Hahn wrote:
>> I want to initiate a project involving a beowulf cluster.   I have 
>> two engineers who are VERY interested.
>
> what kinds of things do they do?
We are and EDA company.  These guys handle the mapper compilers among 
other things.


>
>> Anyway.   I was wondering what would be a "decent" amount of 
>> equipment to start off and the preferred linux if any.
>
> I've run full-scale cluster environments on my laptop ;)
>
> I think I would not bother to set up anything less than 4-ish nodes.
>
>> I was thinking 4 pentiums with dual gig processors.  Ram would be a 
>> gig or more.
>
> you probably don't mean pentiums (P5, followon from the P4, _soo_ fin 
> de siecle)
>
> I find that 2GB/core covers most parallel apps.  1G/core is a bit tight,
> though there are a substantial number of serial apps (or embarassingly
> parallel) at a measly 5-50 MB.
They are not going to pursue this openly.   It's a "secret" project I am 
doing to prove the concept.  One of the engineers pitched it but the 
people that make the decisions don't understand so they won't do it.

P4s are all that available to me.